75,730 claims of rights violations under Marcos are being processed

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo A severed hand being taken away by a dog after bombing operations. A pregnant activist under intense military interrogation and forced to identify the father of the baby in her womb, yelling, “Andres Bonifacio!” A drinking straw inserted into a victim’s penis. Many cases and stories leap out of the pages as painful remembrances, others sound simple and direct but are written in detail, still...

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"Without undivided allegiance'

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo The somewhat abstruse wording—“without undivided allegiance”—that the Supreme Court used in its ruling against a town mayor discovered to have dual citizenship made me do a double-take. I computed it thus: Two negatives cancel out each other to produce a non-negative. Therefore, “without undivided allegiance” simply means “with divided allegiance.” A lesson for the mayor who, in two rulings,...

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Renouncing one's motherland

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo You can’t have it all back. That’s what I want to happen, if I had my way, to those who had once officially renounced their loyalty to their motherland. Sure, you can have most of it back, but not all of it, such as one little thing: aiming for the presidency of the land. That is not too much to give up. You can come back, but it is not like love the second time around. If you were once with...

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Lipa Marian phenomenon "worthy of belief"

 Philippine Daily Inquirer/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo   WHERE MARY APPEARED This is the spot at the Carmelite monastery in Lipa City, Batangas province, where Carmelite postulant Teresita Castillo said the Virgin Mary appeared to her in 1948. The plant near Mary’s statue was supposedly growing close to the site where Mary appeared. The statue is a likeness of Mary as Castillo saw her. MA. CERES P. DOYO WHERE MARY APPEARED This...

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Laotian RM awardee smooth as silk

       Philippine Daily Inquirer/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo     Like the various stages in the making of silk—from silkworms winding cocoons around themselves, to human hands unraveling and spinning them as thread, to the hand-weaving of the fabric with intricate designs—so has been the life journey of Kommaly Chanthavong, a Laotian woman who revived an art and cultural treasure that was nearly lost because of war.  Early...

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'Lumad' in the crosshairs

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo The lumad, or members of indigenous communities, in Surigao del Sur—the Manobo, in particular—are suddenly finding themselves in the crosshairs or guns’ viewfinders. Whose? Why? In the past days, the Inquirer has continuously come out with reports, plus an editorial yesterday, on the plight of the Manobo, two of whose members and a much-loved educator were murdered last Sept. 1. Dead were...

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Saints and martyrs for creation

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo The launching and opening of the Season of Creation on Sept. 1 goes in tandem with Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si,” his recent encyclical on the environment or “On Care for Our Common Home.” Laudato si is Latin for “praise be to you,” the first line of the canticle of praise for God and creation written by St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope’s namesake. On immediate recall are some saints and martyrs...

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