‘Yes you can’

‘Tis summertime and many people are taking a break, going off to distant or secret places in order to heal, to be healthy, to help themselves and others, to try to become whole again. You too, and take a book along.

One good summer reading fare would be the gem of a book “Yes You Can Prevent and Control Cancer” (332 pp., First NuConsciousness Publishing, 2009) by Christine E.V. Gonzalez, Ph.D., co-founder of the Wellness Institute. The book, subtitled, “a personal journal for daily living and total wellbeing” was launched last Saturday at the Ateneo University. Fr. Joey R. de Leon SJ, wrote the foreword.

Gonzalez is a doctor of naturopathic medicine with Ph.Ds in natural health and holistic nutrition. Gonzales is a naturalist, educator and researcher. The book is based on her years of extensive research and experiences. It is a how-to book for people who want to take charge of their own health and wellbeing.

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Suicide

I wrote about suicide a couple of years ago when a 12-year-old named Mariannet Amper of Davao City took her own life (“Suicide has no heroes”, Nov. 15, 2007). Poverty was initially thought to be the main reason for her suicide. The distraught and poverty-stricken family had to deal with the media frenzy and the blame game that attended the tragedy. Mariannet became a poster girl for poverty.

As it turned out, and as the psychotherapists later discovered, the reason the girl killed herself was not as simple as it appeared and poverty was not all there was. Suicide is more complicated than most people think it to be.

Although the incidence of suicide in the Philippines is not as high as those in developed countries, this country has had its share of high-profile cases. The latest is the case of Trinidad “Trina” Arteche Etong, wife of popular broadcaster Ted Failon (Etong). It’s been fairly established that Trina did shot herself but people will not forget the excessive force as caught on camera (thank the media for that!) that the Quezon City police applied on Failon and the Etongs and Arteches while investigating.

Here’s my one-liner for those excessive cops: ‘Di lang kayo pulis patola, pulis mabangis pa.

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Mother Nature’s RP lawyer hailed

MANILA, Philippines—Environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr., he of varied and risky advocacies for Mother Nature, is this year’s recipient of the Environmental Law Award (for 2008) from the US-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). He is the first Asian and Filipino to win the award.

Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide was expected to attend the ceremonies to be held Tuesday (Wednesday, Manila time) in Washington, D.C.

The award “recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the effort to achieve solutions to environmental problems through international law and institutions.”

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Happy

Wishing you a glorious, shimmering Easter. Stunned by God’s love, I, too, cry out, Rabboni!
As the financial crisis creeps worldwide and economic depression touches people’s lives in the most personal way, the subject of happiness is frequently studied by experts, by psychologists, psychiatrists and sociologists mostly. What does it really take to make one happy?

Early last year, just before the economic crunch badly crunched us all, there was much ado about new research findings that challenged the long-held Easterlin Paradox—that happiness does not necessarily increase with income. That is, after a point of satiation has been achieved. The newer research findings from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business showed “a clear positive link” between wealth and “subjective well-being” based on global surveys.

They showed that the facts about income and happiness turned out to be much simpler than first realized. Namely:1) rich people are happier than poor people. 2) richer countries are happier than poor countries, 3)as countries get richer they tend to be happier. But of course! I commented then. Does poverty make anyone happy? It does for those who choose and embrace evangelical poverty and give up material possessions in exchange for a life of simplicity. But that is another story.

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On the street whey they live: From Paraiso to Paris

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Feature/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

MANILA, Philippines – From the time they met some five years ago, Marvin Benosa and partner Pamela, both in their early 30s, have been living on the streets of Manila. They have been cohabiting, procreating, and raising their two children, one aged 3 years, the other, 10 months, in the outdoors. Namamasura (scavenging) is how Marvin describes his way of earning a living.

Elizabeth Sanchez, 38, also lives on the street and sells cigarettes for a living. Last year, doctors at the Ospital ng Maynila discovered she had Stage 4 breast cancer and performed radical mastectomy. Through Operation Tulong, she went through chemotherapy. Still bald because of the therapy, Elizabeth says she hopes she could have radiotherapy and find a source of livelihood. She recently lost to thieves all the stuff she used to peddle on the streets.

William Atutubo, 44, and wife Divina, 42, are also street dwellers. Their two daughters, aged 16 and 14, live in Cavite with relatives. William earns by driving a pedicab which also serves as a shelter at night.

Not a walk in park

Emeterio Laguidao, 49, and wife Teresita, 47, have a wooden kariton (pushcart) for a home. They make a living by scavenging. Their youngest daughter, 10, stays with them; another is with relatives. Their eldest lives with nuns but may have to leave soon after she graduates from elementary school. The Laguidaos had been forced to live on the street after being ejected from their shack on Orosa Street which was scheduled for demolition.

Rosario Calzado, 42, lives on the street because she has nowhere else to go. She recently worked as a maid in Fairview but left her employers because she didn’t like being left alone in the house.

All of them are “residents” of Paraiso ng Kabataan ng Maynila in Manila’s Malate district, where volunteers of Tuluyan Drop-In Center for street families found them. Paraiso is a children’s park near the Manila Zoo.

Not home for homeless

These Paraiso “residents” have all been invited to Tuluyan. The center is at the end of Paris Street, just off Leon Guinto Street. It is run by the Benedictine Sisters who also run St. Scholastica’s College which is a few blocks away. The Filipino word tuluyan literally means a place to stay.

Opened late last year, Tuluyan is not a soup kitchen or a home for the homeless. It is meant to be a temporary haven in the daytime, a place where the homeless could rest awhile, wash themselves and their clothes, use the bathroom and even cook meals. There is food for those without food. The place is neat and well-lighted.

Sr. Cecille Ido OSB, head of the Benedictine Sisters’ nationwide Socio-pastoral Apostolate, says the shelter also offers the homeless opportunities for formation, leadership and skills training which would equip them for life, rehabilitate and help them regain self-respect.

Such intervention could give the homeless an economic boost, help them consider other options or even assist them in returning to their home provinces if and when they do decide to go home. Tuluyan is developing a referral system with other social agencies for services that are beyond the center’s limited means. A street children’s library is also being planned.

This first batch of clients knows that Tuluyan is not meant for night lodging.

“They know when it is time to leave,” Sr. Cecille says. Still, it pains her to see them go at day’s end and back to the streets.

“They leave Tuluyan clean and orderly,” she adds. They are back in no time.

“We are like a family,” Elizabeth says. Alone in the city, she and others like her easily bond with street families. They care and watch out for each other. At night, they are back and huddled together in a secluded spot somewhere in Paraiso. Their pet dogs give them security.

Marvin breaks into tears when he recalls how his family was rounded up by the police and brought to a center in Marikina where they were made to feel like prison inmates. The police had been rounding up street families, confiscating pushcarts used for scavenging.

When Tuluyan volunteers first invited them over, Marvin says he was afraid they would again be cooped up and treated like prisoners. His fears did not materialize and he and his brood have been coming to Tuluyan regularly.

Cat and mouse

Playing cat-and-mouse with the police has been the street dwellers’ lot and so they keep on moving. Along the way, they pick up recyclable items such as soda cans, plastic, paper and metal to sell to junk shops. The price of junk has plummeted, the scavengers lament, and they have no access to the garbage from fast-food chains because there are haulers that collect them. Marvin says on a good week, he could earn P1,000 from scavenging.

Elizabeth, the cancer survivor, says that with all her stuff stolen, she is left with nothing to sell. She now earns by watching cars parked on the streets of Malate. Being without family in Manila and with her health problems, does she want to go home to the province? Her answer: “I don’t want to be a burden to my family.”

It is not just poverty that plagues street dwellers. Their problems are complex. There are other issues that need to be addressed and resolved. Each one has a story to tell, a journey to make.

Why does Rosario prefer to live on the street than work as maid which earned for her P3,200 a month? Why does Elizabeth not want to go home to Bicol? Will the able-bodied Atutubos and Laguidaos not want to start over somewhere, given a chance? Will Marvin and Pamela beget more children living on the street?

Not in the census

Sr. Cecille says street families are not included in the census because they are mobile. What are the figures nationwide? She cites the Social Weather Stations (SWS) June 2008 survey statistics that showed 14.5 million people experienced involuntary hunger between April and June 2008. Severe hunger went up from 3.2 percent to 4.2 percent. These denizens of the streets give a face to the cold statistics; they are the voices that are not heard.

Street children who look hapless and vulnerable easily get the attention of service-oriented institutions; they are the objects of concern of do-gooders and bleeding hearts. But what of the street families? That’s another story. They are looked upon with disdain or as irresponsible begetters of children with no future.

Tuluyan is not the answer to the root cause of homelessness and extreme poverty. It is only one among the varied ministries of the Benedictine Sisters, and as the newest one, it bears watching.

Catching their breath

For now, in a small way, it gives hope and rest to weary individuals and families who are out there shivering from the cold and baking in the heat. It gives them a chance to catch their breath and their bearings. Hopefully, Tuluyan’s programs will help them cross the poverty line and see them make it to the other side.

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From Paraiso to Paris

MANILA, Philippines – From the time they met some five years ago, Marvin Benosa and partner Pamela, both in their early 30s, have been living on the streets of Manila. They have been cohabiting, procreating, and raising their two children, one aged 3 years, the other, 10 months, in the outdoors. Namamasura (scavenging) is how Marvin describes his way of earning a living.

Elizabeth Sanchez, 38, also lives on the street and sells cigarettes for a living. Last year, doctors at the Ospital ng Maynila discovered she had Stage 4 breast cancer and performed radical mastectomy. Through Operation Tulong, she went through chemotherapy. Still bald because of the therapy, Elizabeth says she hopes she could have radiotherapy and find a source of livelihood. She recently lost to thieves all the stuff she used to peddle on the streets.

William Atutubo, 44, and wife Divina, 42, are also street dwellers. Their two daughters, aged 16 and 14, live in Cavite with relatives. William earns by driving a pedicab which also serves as a shelter at night.

Not a walk in park

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Low carbon Holy Week

By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:08:00 04/09/2009

IF WE feel drawn to contemplating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ this Holy Week, we might as well also contemplate the crucifixion of Mother Earth. But we must bear in mind that the high point of Christianity is not the crucifixion but the resurrection. The whole of creation, too, must rise in triumph. We cannot leave Earth to grovel and groan behind us.

Theologian and ecologist Sean McDonagh who spent years in the Philippines wrote in his book “The Greening of the Church”: “A Christian theology of creation has much to learn from the attitude of respect which Jesus displayed towards the natural world. There is no support in the New Testament for a throw-away consumer society which destroys the natural world and produces mountains of non-biodegradable garbage or, worse still, produces toxic waste…

“The disciples of Jesus are called upon to live lightly on the earth –‘take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics’ (Luke 9:1-6). Jesus constantly warned about the dangers of attachment to wealth, possession, or power. These in many ways are what are consuming the poor and the planet itself…

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A healing place called Nazareth

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/Feature/By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

“GOD is here.”

The narrow, tree-lined road leads to the gate of the wooded place on which this sign is tacked. Indeed, it’s a special place, a hidden garden for body and spirit. But more than the place, it’s people who are special here.

Here the wind whispers constantly through the leaves and into one’s soul. Mother Nature and human nature conspire to bring about newness and hope. The sun-drenched green terrain livens up with the footsteps of those who dwell here, human beings on a journey and who are slowly and purposefully finding new life again.

This is the Nazareth Formation House, a Bob Garon Therapeutic Community Center.

One arrives feeling privileged and trusted. It is not every day that a visitor is able to behold people who have extreme stories to tell about being broken and lost, and about their amazing journey within toward becoming whole.

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We are not diminished

By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:16:00 04/01/2009

Those who are planning to declare, or have already declared a fatwa on Chip Tsao, the Chinese columnist of HK Magazine who called the Philippines “a nation of servants” and several other very demeaning things, please rethink your move. His splattered blood and brains are not worth your effort. Thou shalt not kill.

The guy just happens to have no class, no breeding. He could be a survivor of amniocentecis, melamine milk poisoning, or a horrible childhood. Have mercy. We are a nation of compassionate carers, remember?

Tsao’s words about Filipinos translated as “patay-gutom,” the ultimate insult the “mata-pobre” haves could inflict on the have-nots. Oh, but we have not been diminished. Tsao and his HK Magazine have. I bet our humorists will have a field day making us laugh at Tsao and the Filipinos’ Hong Kong “masters.” As we say, if you can’t beat them, laugh at them. Filipinos are great at getting back by laughing their detractors to Kingdom Come.

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