The desecration story

If learned about something really grave and shocking, would I write about it in order to call attention so that people could do something to prevent it or address it? Would I write about it even if I thought it might cause a violent conflagration or a bloody confrontation between parties concerned? Or should I sacrifice revealing the unpleasant truth that I know in order to prevent the worst that could happen? These were some of the thoughts that raced through my mind after a May 9 Newsweek story gave rise to violent protests in many places around...

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`Just tell me why’

It was a small news item in the Inquirer’s The World section two days ago, datelined Enniskillen, Northern Ireland and written by Associated Press’ Paul Majendie. The section editor gave it a longish headline that ran across the entire page: ``Just tell me why you did it, grieving father asks IRA bomber.’’ I found myself reading the story again and again. Page A10, if you wish to read it. The article was very short but powerful. Not weepy at all, except the last small paragraph where the dam broke. Something about the story sounded very familiar,...

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Will Malacanang let down Aetas to favor CDC?

First the good news. Praise be to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) for taking the side of the Aetas of Mabalacat, Pampanga and Bamban, Tarlac by honoring their ancestral land claim. The NCIP even increased the original claim of 5,515 hectares granted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in 1997 to more than 10,000 hectares in 2004. The bad news is that Clark Development Corporation (CDC) has been contesting this since the beginning. And pressures from Malacanang, through a directive sent around Sept. 2004,...

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The mountains cry out

``Like Moses leading his people out of the plagues, in the time of terror and devotion.’’ –the Inquirer on Reynaldo Punongbayan, its 1991 Filipino of the Year I just finished going over the book ``Eruption and Exodus: Mount Pinatubo and the Aytas of Zambales’’ for which I wrote the foreword in 1991. This book chronicles the life of the Aytas and the Franciscan Sisters who lived and worked among them, before, during and after the volcanic eruption that saw much of Central Luzon covered in ash. In it is written that it was in April 1991 that Mount...

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