Remembering heroism aboard MV Cassandra

Sister, a sister callingA master, her master and mine!—And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;The rash smart sloggering brineBlinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divineEars, and the call of the tall nunTo the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling. Those lines are from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Wreck of the Deutschland” (first published in 1918), a very long and difficult poem dedicated to the German Franciscan nuns who died in a shipwreck during a storm...

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Dying Filipino caregiver in Canada is being kicked out

In my column last week on “Caregiver” the movie, I ended by saying the movie should have a sequel. Well, it’s that column piece that is having a sequel. And this is for Filipino caregiver Juana Tejada. Juana de la Cruz, the EveryOFW. I now step aside to project the myriad voices raised on her behalf. First, let me quote portions of a stinging column piece (“Our nanny state, save for nannies,” June 11) written by Joe Fiorito for Canada’s The Star. “Corey Glass may get to stay. He is the American deserter—call him a war resister; better still,...

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‘Caregiver’

Today, the 110th anniversary of our independence, it behooves us to remember the millions of Filipinos toiling in foreign lands so that their loved ones back home could have a better life. Who would have imagined 110 years ago that there would be a diaspora and that Filipino workers—professionals, skilled, unskilled—would populate every nook and cranny of this world? So much Filipino blood, sweat and tears have been shed on foreign shores. Someday, we hope to see a reversal of fortune and Filipinos will be on the top of the heap in their adopted...

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“Poor” grade for government’s asset reform

“Poor.” This was the dismal grade for the implementation of asset reform laws intended to benefit farmers, indigenous communities, the fisherfolk and the urban poor. In this season when the country is suffering from a crisis in food security, comes the information that those who belong to the mentioned sectors, with the exception of the urban poor, are mostly food producers. Asset reform in these sectors has been slow. No wonder! The Philippine Asset Reform Report Card (PARRC) Project gave the dismal grade of “poor” after conducting a survey...

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