Back-to-Christmas movement

If I were from another religion or another planet and I knew the Christmas story and how Christianity began I would be very shocked to see Christmas being celebrated with excessiveness, mindlessness, stressfulness. I would ask: how has Christmas come to this? This was not how it all began. Simplicity has been supplanted by excess. It seems the Christ in Christmas has been x-ed. Xmas. X for excess. Xmall, Xmess. Oh, we say, but we know Christmas is alive, one just has to wade through the X-cess to find the true essence. But why must this be so? Toxic...

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If the land could weep and sing

Well, what can I say. Weeping has turned into rejoicing. Day is breaking all over the land. Joy comes in the morning. If there should be weeping, the weeping should let flow tears of joy. For the farmers of Sumilao who marched 1,700 km. for two months from Bukidnon to Manila under scorching heat and driving rain are finally seeing a glimmer of hope. That the disputed 144 hectares would be theirs once again, wrenched at last from corporate hands after years of weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of the farmer-awardees. But there were will...

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The light of their life

This book convinces me that no mother—if it could be helped—should ever leave her family to work abroad for a long, long stretch of time. That is not the book’s expressed objective and neither is it trying to find economic solutions to stop the endless stream of mothers leaving for jobs far away from their homes. But solutions to the collateral damage are in the offing. “Nawala ang Ilaw ng Tahanan: Case Studies of Families Left Behind by OFW Mothers” tells us what happens when the mother is away for long. The title alludes to mothers as light...

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Leaders for Health Program

“Stories of town mayors giving out medicines, from paracetamol to penicillin, are not unusual because these can get votes. On the other hand, municipal doctors complain about not having enough funds to buy common drugs and gasoline for the ambulance in emergencies. Community members largely stay on the sidelines, rarely participating in the arenas of local governance.” This is the scenario that is common especially in far-flung places. This is the situation that the Leaders for Health Program (LHP) wants to address and change “by making health...

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An apology to Dr. Alfredo Bengzon

A supposed-to-be feel-good Sunday feature that I wrote (p. 1, Inquirer, Nov. 25) turned out to be feel-bad thing, not just for the persons and institutions concerned but also for me, the writer, as well. I made a mistake—not deliberate, of course—and I am sorry. The front page story was on the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health’s (ASMPH) bold move in medical education (“Ateneo graduates in 5 years MDs and MBAs”) which is something unprecedented. The story went well until the last portion where I wrote: “Bengzon, an Atenean who finished...

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Tempest in Tanon

“The State shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature. -Article II, Sec. 16 of the Philippine Constitution I imagine the Lord of the Sea wading to shore wearing raiment of corals and sea grass and--flotsam surrendered by the sea. Thundering, roaring like the wind in a lost empty city, he seeks the despoilers of his ocean home and the home of gentle sea creatures that inhabit the earth and provide food for its inhabitants. Where are they. He roars. Who...

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Suicide has no heroes

The media frenzy, the blame game, the breast-beating, the outpouring of sympathy and the if-onlys that followed turned out to be more surreal than the suicide itself. Everybody and everybody had something to say about 12-year-old Marianette Amper of Davao City, about her diary, her family’s poverty, her dreams and dashed hopes. And how she ended it all with a rope. So young and so despairing. Someone’s got to take the blame--was the undying refrain, the knee-jerk reaction of many. And why not. Manette’s lot in life was indeed something for the...

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Suicide and the blame game

The media frenzy, the blame game, the breast-beating, the outpouring of sympathy and the if-onlys that followed turned out to be more surreal than the suicide itself. Everybody and everybody had something to say about 12-year-old Marianette Amper of Davao City, about her diary, her family’s poverty, her dreams and dashed hopes. And how she ended it all with a rope. So young and so despairing. Someone’s got to take the blame--was the undying refrain, the knee-jerk reaction of many. And why not. Manette’s lot in life was indeed something for the...

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Rock and refuge: NPC then

It was our rock and refuge. It was our sanctuary during the dying days of martial rule. That was the National Press Club for us in the early 1980s. Many of us were greenhorns in journalism then, upstart freelancers from the so-called mosquito press (okay, alternative, and sometimes underground--and underwater if you were the “Ichthys” type) who made bold forays into the mainstream media and were continually at odds with the Marcos military. Hunted, surveilled, “invited”, manacled and thrown into jail. Standing tall by the banks of the Pasig River...

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‘Dies irae, dies illa’

I remember our Benedictine school days when Nov. 1 and 2 were marked as special liturgical days. As college boarders (synonymous with brats), we would listen to the nuns singing the Latin “Dies irae, dies illa” at Mass on All Souls’ Day even when English was already the liturgical language of the day. It was very neo-monastic and I would picture the square-ish Gregorian notes swimming in space while I tried to keep my thoughts from wandering. The organ roared and the voices soared, shaking the rafters of the neo-Romanesque, Germanic chapel which,...

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Sumilao redux

On a clear day in Sumilao, Bukidnon, one could see Mount Kitanglad standing tall in the distance. Nestled between Mount Sayawan and Mount Palaopao, Sumilao is a valley and home to the Higaonon, an indigenous cultural community that lived there before the 1930s when settlers from distant places began to look upon Mindanao and the new frontier. The Higaonon believed that Magbabaya the Almighty, gave this balaang yuta (sacred land) to their forefathers and foremothers. Because of the cool weather and the abundance of pine trees, the people described...

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World Poverty Day is our day

We who are not on the extreme side of the economic divide, we who are fortunate to have a little more than the have-nots, but who have so much less than those who talk six to eight zeros in board rooms and golf courses, have no reason to feel that there is nothing important or impactful for us to do. We are many, in fact, we are the majority, and we have the power. And I do not mean only on election day. If only we could bring forth that power. If only we knew how. Yesterday was the United Nation’s official World Poverty Day. It was not a day...

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‘Go repair my house’

“Moreover they should respect all creatures, animate and inanimate, which bear the imprint of the Most High, and they should strive to move from the temptation of exploiting creation, to the Franciscan concept of universal kinship.” – from the Rule of Saint Francis This column piece should have come out last week, when the feast of St. Francis, patron of the environment, was celebrated. But he could be everybody’s every-day saint and his teachings remain as relevant as when he walked this earth some 12 centuries ago. St. Francis is often associated...

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Apo Reef now a ‘no-take zone’

Today is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment and there is great news for Apo Reef, the world’s second largest and known as the jewel and pride of Mindoro. The reef is second in size to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Oct. 2 marked the total ban on fishing in Apo Reef. This is to ensure that the reef and the residents who live in the area could recover from the effects of overfishing and exploitation for nearly 30 years. No less than the World Wildlife Fund made this announcement. This decision was not reached...

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Hospices for the poor, piglets for women

How exciting and challenging it is to work among the young, the promising, the poor who are strong and who could claim a future. How wonderful it is to count the successes. But how noble it is to work among the forgotten and the least, among those who do not matter even to their own next of kin. They have no wealth to give back, except a smile and a thank you, and a lesson or two on how to love. I have just read about an Asia-Pacific Conference on hospice care that is starting today here in Manila. The Philippines must now be on the map of hospice...

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SOS call from a seaman

If I were to put together the feature stories I had written about overseas Filipino workers (OFW) they could probably fill one small volume. Come to think of it, I probably should put them between covers. They’re part of our history as a people in search of the land of milk and honey. One story was about a domestic helper who stabbed dead the Saudi princess she worked for and who maltreated her for so long. The stabbing happened while the DH and her mistress were on a holiday in Cairo. The maid’s tearful letters to home (the last from the Cairo...

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Sing, ‘fiat justitia ruat coelum’

Indeed, one can say, “nessun dorma”. No one sleeps as this benighted country awaits the rising of the sun and the day of judgment of former president Joseph Estrada. In Puccini’s last opera “Turandot”, no one sleeps as Calaf, the “Unknown Prince”, waits for Princess Turandot’s life-and-death answer to a riddle. Calaf’s fate hangs in the balance. I am starting to write this piece on the eve of the Sandiganbayan’s judgment on Estrada, accused of plunder and several other crimes. I continue writing tomorrow (yesterday, that is) after either his...

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In the dying light in a pauper’s eyes

MANILA, Philippines -- The absent one. This was how Mother Teresa referred to that absence that she felt in her life during her 50-year dark night of the soul. Where was the beloved, the one for whom she poured out the substance of her life, the one supposed to give meaning and purpose to her selfless daring to love the world’s most abandoned? Mother Teresa’s own revelations, kept and hidden even after her death 10 years ago, and made public just recently in a book (“Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light” edited by Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk), are now...

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Heroes on my mind

Like the Tina Turner screamed, “We don’t need another heee-ro.” Not another dead one anyway. But this month is for heroes, both the dead and the undead. And so we, the undead, had another round of the so-called “holiday economics” weekend. The newly dead are having their day, they are coming at us, hogging the headlines. Their message—“It is the soldier…” Their flag-draped coffins are continuously being marched before our eyes in very cinematic ways. I play “Taps” on my mind and salute you all. Strangely photogenic indeed are scenes of the...

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MDG mid-term review: Missing the target

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo The Philippines is “off the track”, it’s too soon to celebrate and there is a lot of work that needs to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 2007 is midway the 15-year-long process of achieving the so-called MDGs targeted by the United Nations but the Philippines is still way off the expected results. Social Watch Philippines gathered civil society groups last Aug. 15 and 16 to do a mid-term review of the MDGs and came up with conclusions and suggestions. Among...

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‘Getting Home’ and going the extra mile

As a gesture of support for the film industry of this world, I told myself I will watch at least one film shown at the 9th Cinemanila International Film Festival (still going on, by the way) which has the presence of no less than US director Quentin Tarantino. The guy’s name is splashed on big banners at the Gateway Mall in Araneta Center, the festival’s venue. I watched the Chinese film “Getting Home”, a “gently philosophical road comedy”, directed by Zhang Yang because the synopsis promised something so out of the ordinary. Also because I had...

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Rainy day thoughts

The falling of rain was front page news two days ago. For too long the parched metropolis and the rain-starved countryside had waited for the sky to open and wash clean the grime and slime of the oppressive (election) summer and renew life in faraway towns and farms. While some parts of Asia were swirling in mud and excess rain water that caused thousands to perish, we in the Philippines had to resort to cloud-seeding, oratio imperata and threats of water rationing in order to avert a water crisis. And then the rain poured. Though farmers had...

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Chinese RM awardees unlike China’s me-generation

One of this year’s seven Ramon Magsaysay awardees, China’s Chen Guangcheng who is blind, will not be able to come. He is in prison. Three of the seven RM awardees are from China. This week’s Time magazine’s cover story is about China’s burgeoning young adults (under age 30) numbering about 300 million. Unflatteringly called the “me-generation”, they are post-Mao, post-cultural revolution babies born in the era of Deng and his successors. They woke up to the hum of a rapidly growing economy, made their first steps inside a bubble that radiated...

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A clean, well-lighted place

On June 30, 1992—that was 15 years ago—just before the new president, Fidel Ramos, was going to be sworn in, I was somewhere in Santa Cruz, waiting for our photographer. I was in a rush to finish an assignment so I could be home to watch the swearing in on TV. I was doing a magazine story and I forget now what it was. But what turned out to be unforgettable was my encounter with a family of soon-to-be-seven that lived in two pushcarts. The mother’s name was Evangelina Gamutan. She was 34 but looked 54. She was ngo-ngo (with a cleft palate) and...

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World Day of Justice

Last Tuesday, July 17, was World Day of Justice. The day marked a milestone in the history of international law and international justice. Nine years ago in 1998, 120 states attending the Plenipotentiary Conference in Rome adopted the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). As of today, 139 states have signed and 105 have ratified. It should be noted that while celebrations were taking place all over the world, here in the Philippines a summit on extrajudicial killings attended by stakeholders from civil society,...

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Remembering Lean

The youth of this generation ought to have and ought to know someone like him, someone so passionate and dedicated to a vision and a cause. And yet so endearingly likeable. Ask his friends and comrades. He was the quintessential student or youth activist. Leandro “Lean” Alejandro was all of 27 when he was killed in a hail of bullets 20 years ago. He was emerging from his organization’s office when the forces of evil swooped down on him and gunned him down. The predators had caught up with their prey and would turn him into mincemeat. What they...

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57 blood-red years

Showbiz celebrity brats like Paris Hilton and other wannabes out there have a lot to learn from this great woman. Long before she became a movie icon and had her name on the firmament of genuine stars Rosal Rosal (Florence Danon) had already begun to have a life outside of the glitzy world of showbiz. “I was in this world but not of this world,” she likes to say. It’s a biblical phrase she often quotes to stress that the movie persona she was known for was not what she was in real life. Of course, people know that by now. This year, Rosal Rosal...

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The way of ‘he’ in Nanjing

Nanjing, China—“O God, with a thousand names…” I could have invoked. What is striking about this picture? Close to 200 eminent persons belonging to and professing different religious faiths, as well as eminent persons not professing any faith, gathered together at the 3rd Asia-Europe Interfaith Dialogue in Nanjing, China. (Two previous ones had been held in Bali and Larnaca.) They came from 39 Asian and European countries. Diplomats and government officials outnumbered the religious leaders and civil society representatives. The majority (124...

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‘Trauma, interrupted’: Naming the pain

What can art do in the face of global suffering? Can artists interrupt the trauma or do they intensify the pain when they step into it and try to do something to ease it? These are some of the questions posed by women artists in the art exhibit “Trauma, interrupted” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (June 14–July 29). The art works in different media are the 18 artists’ expression of their deep emotions (rage, shame, hope, peace) and resolve that have arisen from pain and trauma they’ve had to deal with—their very own or the collective...

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The power of “The Ninth”

Pacifists, fascists, religious, communists, Nazis, romantics, tyrants, humanists, revolutionaries, despots, freedom fighters. What do they have in common? They have felt inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, particularly its fourth and last movement known as “Ode to Joy.” What is it about “Ode to Joy” that movements and leaders who hold divergent beliefs and ideologies have claimed it to be the anthem that embodies their quest? Last week the German Cultural Center held another screening of “Tne Ninth”, the award-winning documentary...

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The grace of remembering

Last week’s column (“Disappeared”) which was about remembering those who vanished in the night, and where I used excerpts from an article (“The Missing and Dead and those who Survive to Tell the Story.”) that I wrote in the 1980s elicited some heart-tugging feedback. One of them was from poet Grace Monte de Ramos who had been moved many years ago by that feature story that came out in the Mr.& Ms. Special edition (the “subversive” edition edited by the present Inquirer editor in chief) and was “provoked” to write a poem. For Grace, last week’s...

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Disappeared

Today, in observance of the International Week of the Disappeared, a gathering of human rights advocates, relatives and friends of desaparecidos (Spanish for disappeared) will take place at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani. Commemoration rites will be held at 5 p.m. at the new Salonga Building’s Yuchengco Auditorium. If you have not been to that hallowed place, then go some time. It is at the corner of EDSA and Quezon Ave. You can’t miss the Castrillo bronze landmark, a soaring monument of a mother lifting up her fallen son from the ground. Quietly...

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Where have the piano makers gone?

Where have all the piano makers gone? Gone with globalization every one. That’s my take on the vanished piano-making industry in the Philippines. Almost gone too are the craftsmen and artisans who built these great musical instruments that had brought music and liveliness to Philippine homes and concert halls. But not entirely. Australia-based Filipino visual artist Alwin Reamillo, who comes from a family of piano makers, is back, trying to prove that the music from Philippine-made pianos need not die. Not if the few remaining piano builders...

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A teacher, a sheltering tree

It was hard keeping track of the body count or the exact number of casualties during the campaign period and the election day itself. The Inquirer put at 147 the death toll since the election campaign began on Jan. 14, the Philippine National Police total is 143. I know the number stands for individual lives with faces and names, and with a network of families, friends and colleagues grieving for them. But sometimes the tally and the list of names just seem to numb feelings because they are just numbers to those of us who do not know the victims...

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Lola Masing, comfort woman

Tomasa Dioso Salinog of San Jose, Antique, one of the many World War II so-called comfort women in Asia who suffered sexual abuse under the Japanese Imperial Army, died of multiple organ failure last April 6. She was 78. I met Lola Masing at the International Military War Crimes Tribunal held in Tokyo in 2000. Lola Masing led a dozen former comfort women from Philippines and joined dozens from several Asian countries (China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, South Korea, among them) who bravely testified. A Dutch woman victim and a contrite...

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Under siege on World Press Freedom Day

It’s World Press Freedom Day today and the son of one of the country’s media icons is missing. Abduction is the most likely reason for the disappearance of Jonas “Jay Jay” Burgos who was reportedly seen being taken away by unidentified men at a mall. Who were they? Where have they taken him? Why? I hope this column becomes stupid reading because Jason was found alive while I am writing this (yesterday). But this is not the case right now while I am emailing this to the Inquirer close to deadline time. I’ve never used the press releases of those...

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Quach and the power of music

Most everyone has an extreme fantasy. I have mine. By extreme I mean something that is beyond my present circumstances to fulfill or work at. It is not a dark frustration, but rather a thing to happily indulge in once in a while. Something magical brings it on. It is music. My sweet indulgence is imagining myself conducting a symphony orchestra or playing as a concert pianist. I never imagine myself a car racer or ramp model. The concert or movie in my mind rolls when I hear great symphonic music swell and every inch of space around me is awash...

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“Whether through wounds, capture or shipwreck”

My feature story on the Philippine National Red Cross’ 60th year that came out last Monday did not have its accompanying sidebar because of space constraints. It was Manny Pacquiao day, you see, and with his new triumph, the boxing champ made good “blaze of glory” promise that would momentarily dazzle the nation. Not that we are wanting in inspirational blazes and sparks nowadays. There are many out there, emanating from the lives of unknown, unsung and unseen heroes. Many of these are Red Cross volunteers who have put their lives on the line...

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Fish be with you

Happy Easter! Are they poor because they are fishers? Or are they fishers because they are poor? These questions of causality sum up the concerns of international fish experts—scientists, academics, government and NGO workers—who were in conference two days ago. Easter week opened with fish and the poor on top of the agenda of the International Conference on Fisheries and Poverty. The discussions on the theme “Poverty Reduction Through Sustainable Fisheries” zeroed in on emerging policy and governance issues in Southeast Asia. With the glow...

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Stunned by God’s fierce, passionate love

Philippine Daily Inquirer/FEATURE/by Ma. Ceres P. DoyoMANILA, Philippines -- “GOD IS A FIERCE LOVER who will never let go,” says popular Catholic lay preacher Bo Sanchez of his experience. “Being in love with God is capturing and being seized by God’s eros—God is in love with us,” says Fr. Percy Bacani of the Missionaries of Jesus. During the seasons of Lent and Easter “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son…” will be an oft-quoted...

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Interactive Via Dolorosa

Here’s wishing you a passionate Holy Week. The Internet has revolutionized ways for people to prayerfully contemplate the world. (Contemplation could be defined as taking a long, loving look at reality.) If one cannot be physically present in places where the Via Dolorosa is being played out daily in people’s lives, one can at least participate virtually through the web and then live out Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection in the context of one’s own life. Visit the interactive Way of the Cross in the Internet of the Operation Rice Bowl (ORB)...

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Nuns, bishop in the casino

What were they doing there? How did they get there? Who brought them there? Why were they there? What did they think their presence there would mean? Are they a new breed? These were some of the questions asked by those who saw, on television, nuns trying out what looked like slot machines in the casino at the “Las Vegas”-to-be strip along Manila Bay. Also present was Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias who gave the occasion an ecclesiastical feel. Even the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) didn’t quite know how to react, but...

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Heart in two places

MANILA, Philippines -- “When we were asked to stand up, raise our right hand, and pledge to ‘renounce’ our loyalties to our old country, I felt a giant lump in my throat and I had to struggle not to cry. By the time they sang the national anthem, they had already lost me.” That paragraph, though emotionally charged, sounds prosaic when compared with the rest of the essays in Gemma Nemenzo’s gem of a book, “Heart in Two Places: An Immigrant’s Journey” (Anvil). The moment she describes is a watershed moment for most Filipinos who have left their...

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MDGs, FTAs

Alphabet soup, anyone? The letters are swimming in my head like letters in a bowl of alphabet soup heaving with dollops of jargon. One moment I know what a bunch of letters means, the next moment I find myself asking what SIA is. I bet, you also do not know. SIA stands for sustainability impact assessment. Do FTA and EPA mean the same? Are we ever an MFN? What happened to the WTO? And then there are the kilometric words. Trade liberalization, globalization, neo-liberalism, multilateral, bilateral, developmental, etc. Journalists hate long words....

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One stroke, everything changes, beauty emerges

Philippine Daily Inquirer/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo MANILA, Philippines -- With one stroke. As with former president of the University of the Philippines and one-time National Security Adviser Emanuel ?Noel? Soriano, or with anyone, everything could change with one stroke, a brain stroke. Discovering meaning and purpose in the aftermath of the disabling blow is consolation enough. But translating these into beauty is indeed a graced response to God's hello. And it takes a village, a community of caring persons, to make this happen. "It...

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Hildegard, woman power

“Hail, O greenest branch…(O viridissima virga…)/ When the time came/ that you blossomed in your branches/ hail, hail was (the word) to you! For the warmth of the sun distilled in you/ a fragrance like balsam./ For in you blossomed the beautiful/ flower that gave fragrance/ to all the spices/ which had been dry/ And they all appeared in all verdure…” Today is Women’s Day and this month is Women’s Month. Greetings, dear sisters! It behooves us to learn from great women who lived many centuries removed from our era, women who made a dent in their...

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American nun’s EDSA 1 letters (2)

Maryknoll missionary Sr. Helen Graham has been working in the Philippines since 1967. As a theologian who teaches Sacred Scriptures in two religious institutions, Sr. Helen has put her theology into practice and has been very involved in justice and peace issues. During the volatile season that preceded and culminated in the February 1986 EDSA 1 people power uprising, Sr. Helen chronicled daily events (from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26) in her letters to friends abroad. Excerpts:...

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Gawad Kalinga goes worldwide

Philippine Daily Inquirer/News/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo and Nestor P. Burgos Jr. Bishop says GK new kind of People Power MANILA, Philippines -- Hope and a better life are the latest Filipino exports. Poor as it is, the Philippines would not be left behind in the sharing department.Gawad Kalinga (GK), the highly successful housing and development project for the poor, is going global to improve the lives of the countless poor in other countries. This major step means familiar GK key people will have to be moved and new faces will emerge. That is all...

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American nun’s EDSA 1 letters (1)

Maryknoll missionary Sister Helen Graham has been working in the Philippines since 1967. As a theologian who teaches Sacred Scriptures in two religious institutions, Sr. Helen has put her theology into practice and has been very involved in justice and peace issues. During the volatile season that preceded and culminated in the February 1986 EDSA 1 people power uprising, Sr. Helen chronicled daily events (from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26) in her letters to friends abroad. Here are excerpts: Feb. 23, 1986 Dear everybody, Greetings from Quezon City!!...

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Ken Saro Wiwa on my mind

When CNN reporter Jeff Koinanga got near the place where he was supposed to meet with his interviewee Jomo Gbomo, spokesman of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), his boat was surrounded by boatloads of armed men. Men in black, wearing bonnets, brandishing big firearms and shooting into the air, prancing, dancing. This was enough to sow terror in the heart of even the most hardened of journalists. I couldn’t help recalling my own foray into the wilderness of Samar with a bunch of journalists. Using a motorized banca, we...

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Vista and toxic e-waste

I wanted to be one of the countless gawkers in green or blue attire at last weekend’s Microsoft Vista launch at the seaside mall but when I imagined the number of people there who spoke computerese I changed my mind. Besides, I was not buying the new program. Not yet. I mean, we’d soon have to have it if there is no other one to choose. Although I’m no techie, I’ve been reading up on Vista and what it can do for me. Microsoft’s Bill Gates himself said Vista took some five years to perfect so it must be awesome. But some computer experts say it...

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Ateneo’s 11

That is what we are about…It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning…We are prophets of a future that is not our own. –Martyred El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980) In reverse alphabetical order: Manny Yap (1951-1976), Nick Solana, Jr. (1949-75), Lazzie Silva (1952-75), Ditto Sarmiento (1950-77), Dante Perez (1951-72), Eman Lacaba (1948-78), Edgar Jopson (1948-82), Sonny Hizon (1952-74), Jun Celestial (1950-74), Billy Begg (1959-75), Ferdie Arceo (1952-73). All so young and so committed. Will there be another generation like theirs?...

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Abbé Pierre

France is mourning the passing of one of it’s most well loved, if not sometimes controversial, figures. L’Abbé Pierre est mort… Abbé Pierre, a Catholic priest who devoted much of his life to the care of the homeless poor, died on Monday, Jan. 22. He was 94. France is probably neck and neck with Italy in the saints department. Despite France’s secularized society it has continued to produce saintly icon to this day. The much-loved Brother Roger of Taize, also in his 90s, died last year in the hands of a knife-wielding deranged devotee. These modern-day...

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An inconvenient truth

All the Asean heads of state and their ministers who came for the recent Asean summit in Cebu were all gathered in one dark room for 100 minutes, listening to former US Vice President Al Gore in the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. Each one had a bucket of popcorn. And when it was over they all stood up, their faces flushed because they all felt a sudden energy surge. They all went out the door, walking briskly, ready to take on the world with great resolve. Wishful thinking. That was a what-if scenario that was running like a sidebar frame...

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Oprah’s $40-million school for girls

I made a mistake last week. Instead of writing $40 million, I wrote $40,000. That’s minus three zeroes or a staggering difference of $39,960,000. I wanted to show how big $40 million was so I wrote the numbers—zeroes and all—(instead of the word million) but was short of three zeroes. So how does $40,000,000 look now? That was how much US TV giant Oprah Winfrey spent to build a school for poor girls in South Africa. The Opra Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls opened last Jan. 2 with the first 75 students whom Opra herself had handpicked. I...

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‘Babaylan’ crossings

You have tampered with the women/ You have struck a rock/ You have dislodged a boulder/ You will be crushed. – from an Afrikaan freedom song That is a line from an Afrikaan freedom song sung at the historic women’s freedom march in 1956 in South Africa. The minister of education recalled those lines during the 2002 ground breaking of the Opra Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Soweto. The academy opened as 2007 was being ushered in and was ready to take in its first batch of girls. That school was Oprah’s promise to the revered former South...

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