OFWs stricken ill

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

Nanay Flor Tejada, for years an overseas Filipino worker in Hong Kong, lost her daughter Armyn, also a Hong Kong OFW, to breast cancer in 2008. The following year, her other daughter, Nene, also a Hong Kong OFW, followed suit because of colon cancer. Both Armyn and Nene died in Hong Kong. After Nene’s passing, Nanay Flor went home to the Philippines to care for a son who was diagnosed to have liver cancer and eventually died. Not long after, Nanay Flor herself found out that she had lung cancer. She is now struggling to live and get healed.

Nanay Flor’s story is among the many stories in “running priest” Fr. Robert Reyes’ book “Buhay Ka: Struggles in Mortality, Glimpses of Eternity” that documents Hong Kong OFWs’ battle against cancer. The book was launched on Feb. 4, World Cancer Awareness Day and will soon be available at Popular Bookstore. Philippine Medical Association president Dr. Oscar Tinio wrote the foreword.

The stories in the book are not just about OFWs who were stricken ill and waged a battle against a dreaded disease in a place so far from home and loved ones. It is also about Filipinos caring for fellow Filipinos in difficult and extraordinary circumstances. And while work and disease are the common denominators for these OFWs, many of whom are domestic helpers, their cases and the nature of their battles are as varied as the lives they left behind in their home country.

Reyes who was assigned in Hong Kong for several years and who considered himself an OFW began his “street ministry” in Hong Kong by organizing a band of OFWs who called their group Lakbay Lingap. Writes Reyes, “Every Sunday, sometimes Saturday, we would meet and walk to the various meeting places of the thousands of OFWs… Every other OFW we met seemed enclosed and even imprisoned by their story of loss.” Thoughts of an unfaithful husband, children in trouble and debts at home plagued them. “And then there were those whose health have suffered a serious downturn, those who have been diagnosed to have cancer.

“After the streets, members of Lakbay Lingap began visiting hospitals. It was there that we met Lydia Bartolome who allowed us to journey with her and led us to others like her. I was not familiar with the hospitals of Hong Kong. Soon we were visiting Queen Mary Hospital, Prince of Wales Hospital, Pamela Eudes Hospital and so many other hospitals that hid so many of those who were hailed at home as heroes. What kind of heroes were they now that they were sick?

“Thank God, their employment in Hong Kong included medical insurance, but only while they were employed. As soon as a worker is terminated, and unless she finds another employer, in two weeks she has to leave Hong Kong lest she be penalized for overstaying.”

It was during his meetings with the ailing OFWs that the priest often heard the lamentation, “Mamamatay ako.” (I am going to die.) And so he would often hear himself counter with, “Pero buhay ka pa ngayon. Sabihin mo nga, buhay na buhay ako.” (But you are still alive. Say, I am very much alive.” And so the name “Buhay Ka” was adopted for the group of OFWs who were battling cancer and other ailments.

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Cancer and medical tourism

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

While health and tourism officials as well as health institutions are doing their best to promote medical tourism in the Philippines by way of drawing foreign patients to avail of Filipino medical expertise, Chinese hospitals are beating them through aggressive advertising right in our own home ground. This is especially so in the cancer department. But this is getting ahead of the story.

The third week of January being national Cancer Consciousness Week and Feb. 4 being World Cancer Day, the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology (PSMO) recently held a press conference to brief the media on the national cancer situation and other related issues. PSMO’s campaign theme is “Fighting Cancer: Education, Prevention, Treatment.”

Founded in 1969, PSMO is a scientific, professional organization of medical oncologists (now numbering 146) committed to the advancement of the science and the ethical and holistic practice of medical oncology. This means active participation in national programs and campaigns to promote cancer awareness and safe practices in the field of medical oncology for optimal patient results.

The national picture is not pretty. Studies from 2008 to 2010 have shown a steady increase in cancer incidence. PSMO cited Globocan research estimates that in 2012, new cancer cases (in men and women) will be roughly 82,460. The top cancer sites in women include breast, cervix, uterus and lungs, while in men they are lungs, liver, colon/rectum and prostate.

The good news is that more advocacy groups are spreading cancer awareness. Said PSMO president Dr. Felycette Gay Lapus, “Every day is cancer consciousness day for us. We seek to arm the public with as much information as possible. Prevention is the ultimate goal, but if that can’t be achieved, it is important to get proper and safe treatment as early as possible.”

PSMO vice president Dr. Ellie May Villegas said that earlier detection and better treatment have resulted in decreased cancer deaths (18 percent) in the United States since the 1990s, reversing decades of increases. “Hopefully, the Philippines will follow suit,” she added.

Dr. Dennis Tudtud shared the latest research findings in occupation-related cancer. Unknown to many, there are carcinogenic chemicals in the work place that increase the risk of cancer.

An issue that came up in the press conference was the aggressive advertising of Chinese hospitals to entice Filipinos to be “medical tourists” in China. In the past months major dailies carried ads that boasted of new technologies and innovative treatment procedures for cancer patients in China. These ads even carried stories of individual patients (non-Filipinos) who purportedly benefited from the treatments.

Representatives of a Chinese hospital even go to schools with Chinese-Filipino population to do their promotion. Their target audiences are not the students but the Chinese-Filipino parents. This is according to a doctor (with Chinese ancestry) from a well-known Metro Manila hospital. Her daughter is a student in one of the schools visited by promoters.

This doctor happens to have experienced first-hand what going to one of these China hospitals was like. Her own brother who had lung cancer died within seven months despite assurances from the Chinese doctors that he was “95 percent cured.”

This doctor’s brother had undergone procedures here and in Singapore, chemotherapy among them, but these were not completed because, before she knew it, her brother and his family had decided that he should go to China for treatment. Despite doubts, the doctor did not get in the way of her brother’s desires. She had no clear idea what he was going through. All she was told was that her brother was getting better.

On the patient’s last trip to China things went awry. “I got a call. I spoke to a doctor who spoke broken English but we could hardly understand each other. I decided fast, got a visa and flew to China.” She was upset by what she saw.

“People at the airport were not familiar with the hospital even though its name rang a bell in the Philippines. Well, it was a building on what looked like Avenida Rizal, right close to the street. You should be able to imagine that. My brother was on the seventh floor where the well-off were supposed to be. While he was dying there was nothing attached to him, not even oxygen. He died 15 minutes after I arrived. The hospital had no morgue. He had to be brought to some place.”

And then there’s the issue of so-called radioactive seed implantation. Oncologists shared horror stories about patients coming home from China with the still radioactive seeds inside them. “Pity the airplane passenger sitting beside a radioactive patient,” said an oncologist who knew of such cases.

So why aren’t the Filipino oncologists, among the best in the world, and the state-of-the-art procedures in our five-star hospitals, not being aggressively promoted? They are medical tourism’s best kept secret. “We don’t have the funds,” Lapus lamented.

Book launch: On Feb. 4, “running priest” Fr. Robert Reyes will launch his book, “Buhay Ka: Struggles in Mortality, Glimpses of Eternity” that documents Hong Kong’s overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) battle against cancer. The venue is the St. Dominic Medical Center in Bacoor, Cavite where visiting Canadian doctors will present a new program and equipment for early cancer detection. Reyes’ book will be available at Popular Bookstore on T. Morato, Quezon City.

Reyes had accompanied many women OFWs on their journey towards healing and to the threshold of eternity.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

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Cruising with OFWs

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

I used to think that the thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were seamen worked mostly on cargo ships. But some years back when I went on a Mediterranean cruise with friends, I realized that these luxury vessels that offered fun, relaxation and cultural experiences sailed on the sweat of our OFWs.

For almost two weeks now, OFWs have been in the news after the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground and keeled over off the coast of Italy on Jan. 13. The ship carried 4,229 tourists from different countries and hundreds of crew members, 229 of them Filipinos, both men and women.

As of last count the number of dead and missing was less than 40, none of them Filipino. The Filipino crew’s courage and dedication will long live in the memory of many survivors whom our OFWs assisted during those terrifying times.

This happening made me recall my own personal experiences with OFWs aboard a cruise ship. I thought that trip was going to be pure relaxation for me but when I saw the countless Filipinos who worked on the ship, I donned my journalist’s hat in between land tours and fun activities on board. I interviewed dozens of OFWs as well as the ship’s officers. Months later, the maiden issue of the Inquirer’s Global Nation section ran my story and photos.

Our OFWs indeed ruled the roost in that cruise ship because of their sheer number and also because of their skills, talent, dependability and graciousness. I was told that Filipinos comprised about 60 percent of the 853-strong crew.

From boiler room to ballroom, from stage to spa, from poolside to pantry, from bar to fine dining. From the belly of the luxury ship to the topmost deck where one could see forever and behold the azure sea and sky of the Mediterranean.

I don’t know if the figures have changed, but in 2005 $1.7 billion of the total $10.8 billion remitted by OFWs came from sea-based OFWs. The number of Filipino seafarers working abroad then was about 250,000 or approximately 20 percent of the world’s total.

The rise in the number of Filipino seamen could be attributed to the inclusion of the Philippines in the International Maritime Organization’s “White List” of 72 accredited countries. Being on the list meant a country continuously complied with the standards required of seamen.

A good number of our sea-based OFWs work on cruise ships. These luxury liners cater to vacation-bound, fun-loving, adventure-seeking humans who work hard and play hard, or who just want to be out of reach and listen to the music of the ocean.

Our ship sailed from Barcelona and back and stopped in several key places on the Mediterranean coasts of Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey. The OFWs working on board were there to help make good things happen. The job is demanding as cruises involve service, hospitality, food, fun, travel, safety and, most of all, people.

I met and interviewed chefs, food servers, spa attendants, bartenders, violinists, guitarists, singers, band members, photographers, engineers. They spoke about their work, earnings and dreams for their families. Eager to please, they even offered to cook for us Filipino dishes not on the menu. They served them to us in the formal dining hall while other nationals cast curious looks on our table.

Homesick as they were, the Filipino crew kept abreast of happenings in the Philippines by printing a daily news digest culled from the Web.

From some of them I did get to know details about the case of a passenger (one of a honeymooning couple) who vanished into the sea while we were sleeping. I fancied myself as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher of “Murder, She Wrote.” Was it suicide, murder or an accident? (Several years later, when the case was featured on the “Oprah” show, I couldn’t help exclaiming, “I was there when it happened!”)

The American cruise director had only good words for the Filipinos. “They are so talented and they learn very quickly,” he said. “They’re great workers.”

The debonair Greek ship captain, a seasoned sea voyager for 33 years, told me that he had been working with Filipinos since the 1980s. He said: “They get along well with other nationalities. They are very educated and they are a happy lot.”

Whether it was instructing on wine tasting, giving beauty massages, serving at formal dinners, making omelets at the breakfast buffet, playing music, snapping photos amid the Greek ruins, ensuring security and swiping cards at entry and exit points, disposing of garbage or keeping staterooms clean, Filipino seamen and women were doing their best. I thought, why not a Filipino guest chaplain or even a morgue attendant?

The least seen but perhaps the most important because they made the ship sail the distances were those who worked in the belly of the ship or the engine room. Our lives were in their hands. I was allowed to descend to the hard hat area where I met some of the Filipino engineers who were a cheerful lot.

Life for the OFWs on board these cruise ships is surely not problem-free, as life anywhere is not. Are the OFWs on these so-called floating four-star, five-star hotels better off than those in cargo ships and oil tankers? What lies beyond those glittering nights and sunny days at sea? What awaits them in their homeland?

A question I couldn’t help asking: Don’t they feel resentful when they see food and drink flowing endlessly, people having so much fun and spending money for this kind of voyage, while they, the OFWs, work hard to keep these tourists thrilled? And while they pine for home?

“Oh no,” said a food server without a tinge of resentment. “Many of these passengers have worked hard, too. And because of them we have our jobs. Someday we, too, could enjoy something like this.” #

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Pestano appeared to healing priest

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

The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Jan. 12 banner story: “Pestaño case not suicide but murder” (by Lelia B. Salaverria). The lead paragraph: “Agreeing with the parents of Navy Ensign Philip Pestaño that he did not kill himself 16 years ago, the Office of the Ombudsman reversed itself and filed murder charges against 10 Navy officers in the Sandiganbayan yesterday and ordered their dismissal for grave misconduct….

“The 24-year-old Pestaño was found dead in his cabin aboard the BRP Bacolod City on Sept. 27, 1995, shortly before the ship was to dock at the Philippine Navy headquarters in Manila. He had a bullet wound in the head.”

In 1995 I was assigned to explore the suicide angle while another reporter was to do the murder angle. I remember then Navy Capt. Alex Pama (now Navy commodore) come to the Inquirer to explain why it was suicide. After the story came out, a sister of Pestaño wrote to convince me to think otherwise even though the front page was quite balanced—two stories on two angles. I just happened to be assigned to do the suicide angle.

Fast forward 16 years later: For the Halloween issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, I wrote a long feature story (“He sees dead people and they confess to him,” November 2011) about Fr. Efren “Momoy” Borromeo of the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity and who is known as a “healing priest.” This was not your usual ghost story and Father Borromeo is not so ordinary. He has the God-given gift of healing the sick and seeing souls, usually at 3 a.m. He revealed that the souls of those who perished in the 2009 Ampatuan massacre had appeared to him. In 1995 Pestaño’s spirit had also come to tell him that he was murdered.

Father Borromeo is finishing his doctorate in cosmic anthropology and ably articulates his experiences in psycho-spiritual terms. Among the papers he shared with me were a collage of his eidetic insights and the account of lawyer Felipe Pestaño on his dead son’s meeting with the priest and the family’s pursuit for justice. Excerpts from “A Crime that Cries to Heaven”:

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PCIJ: Justices, Ombudsman, House defy SALN law

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

In one of the eight articles of impeachment against Chief Justice Renato Corona, the 188 members of the House of Representatives who signed the complaint censured him for refusing to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN). But according to the records of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), in securing SALNs since 2006, “the sorry picture that emerges is one of rank non-compliance—or creative defiance of the law—not just by the justices of the Supreme Court from 1992, but also by the members of the 15th Congress, the executives of the constitutional commissions, the Office of the Vice President, and the star-rank officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, among others.”

The PCIJ’s latest report, written by executive director Malou Mangahas (with research and reporting by Karol Anne M. Ilagan), looks at patterns of non-compliance by public officials. Provisions in the Constitution and anti-graft laws require the full and prompt disclosure of their SALN.

Not that Corona should not be impeached. But members of the House, as the PCIJ report shows, could well be guilty of the same omission and culpable of violating the Constitution and anti-graft laws. A case of the pot calling the kettle black.

According to Mangahas, the PCIJ’s records from 2006 to December 2011 reveal a pattern of non-disclosure of SALNs by senior officials from all the branches of the government, except for the Senate. She gives due credit to the Senate which she describes as “most exemplary in its compliance with the law.” She adds that the Senate has consistently disclosed copies of the asset records of all its members over the last decades, including the asset records of those who will now sit as judges in Corona’s impeachment trial.

First on the PCIJ’s list of public officials who continue to defy the SALN law is Conchita Carpio-Morales, a retired associate justice whom President Aquino appointed ombudsman in July 2011. Writes Mangahas: “Her office has rebuffed an omnibus request that the PCIJ filed in September 2011 to secure the SALNs of officials that many agencies had denied since 2006.

“Carpio-Morales’ office to this day also insists on the rule that SALN requests have to be subscribed and sworn to before a prosecutor of the Ombudsman’s Office, according to a controversial memorandum circular issued by her impeached predecessor Merceditas Gutierrez.”

If failure or refusal to disclose one’s SALN is now an impeachable offense, then Carpio-Morales and a whole caboodle of government officials deserve not only censure but the boot. According to the PCIJ, 185 of the 188 members of the 15th Congress who filed the impeachment case against Corona have not disclosed their SALNs.

The PCIJ reports that thus far, only two of the 282 members of the 15th Congress have actually disclosed copies of their 2010 SALN upon request: Mohammed Hussein P. Pangandaman (Lanao del Sur) and Maximo B. Rodriguez Jr. (PL-Abante Mindanao). They are not among the 188 signatories to the impeachment complaint that the House submitted to the Senate impeachment court.

“Creative defiance” is how the PCIJ calls the way House members avoided RA 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials which requires public disclosure of SALNs. How creative? you ask. The House merely issued summaries of the House members’ net worth.

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Cities be warned, prepare

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

Local government officials, citizens’ groups and NGOs in four Philippine cities should thank the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Philippines and BPI Foundation for undertaking research and publishing “Business Risk Assessment and the Management of Climate Change Impact.” It is subtitled “Vulnerability Assessment of Four Philippine Cities.”

The four cities are Baguio, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo. The words “risk” and “vulnerability” should turn the elected local officials of these cities into boy scouts and girl scouts (if they are not already) and make them swear by the motto “Be Prepared.” They should hit the ground running as early as now. But first, they should have the information.

Lazy local executives elsewhere who have seen the aftermath of Tropical Storm “Sendong” should be pressured to do some physical and mental aerobics by the riverbanks, lakeshores and mountain tops. Reading the WWF-BPI study is also a good start. The reading-challenged could practice some humility and seek explanations from the experts who are more than willing to share what they know, help them gather data and assess their vulnerability.

The WWF-BPI study begins with a national overview. It then takes on “an in-depth, city-specific view” and presents the methodology that was used, the scope of the assessment, analyses, scenario-building, adaptive capacity and integration and assessment. The study takes note of each city’s “socio-economic sensitivity”—its population, housing, source of income, educational facilities, businesses, water supply and even crime solution efficiency. It attempts “to look 30 years into the future” and encourages “out-of-the-box” thinking.

Here are excerpts from the WWF-BPI assessments per city. (You can ask for a soft copy of the study by sending an e-mail to kkp@wwf.org.ph.)

At barely 57 sq. km, Baguio City is the smallest and most densely populated city covered by this study. In the scoring process, it also emerged as the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. All historical records confirm that Baguio City has the highest rainfall in the country, and climate trends indicate that this is likely to get worse. From a climate point of view, the management of urbanization trends and watersheds as well as Baguio’s population growth will play roles in defining the continued viability of this city’s economy.

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'The man who planted trees'

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

I wrote the piece below for this space 20 years ago, in 1991 (with a different title). I share this again to honor those who have been guarding our forests with their lives, in memory of the thousands (almost 2,000 dead and some 1,000 still missing) who perished in the Dec. 16 flash floods, landslides and log slides that roared into parts of Northern Mindanao and the Visayas, and in solidarity with the grieving, hungry, homeless and hopeless.

Tropical Storm “Sendong” is not entirely to blame. Earth watchers have been crying out in the wilderness, subsisting on the proverbial locusts and wild honey, unheeded in their own woebegone country.

While re-working this piece I was listening to the Enya album, “The Memory of Trees” and thinking of all the real Christmas trees out there that have protected us. I pray for brightness on the road ahead, “charged with the grandeur of God.”

                                                                * * *

When you remembered that all this had sprung from the hands and the soul of this one man, without technical resources, you understood that men could be as effectual as God in other realms than that of destruction. —from “The Man Who Planted Trees”

A story I read as a little girl and which I remember very well to this day (in fact the copy is still preserved at home in the province) is that of Johnny Appleseed. I remember his saucepan of a cap, his bright eyes and the fistful of apple seeds he strew around wherever he went.

Children keep things in their hearts and remember even when they become adults. After these many years I still remember how good I felt reading that picture story in the Junior Classics Illustrated. How Johnny Appleseed made the bare fields bloom and when he was old, how he marveled at the work of his hands and how he died a happy man and how the birds in the apple trees chirped his name long after he was gone.

I remember as I go over this warm little book which my friend, a farmer, lent to me. The book, “The Man Who Planted Trees,” comes with audio (text and music) which can be played while one is reading the book. Listening and reading—slowly, meditatively—takes 40 minutes. (This is now on YouTube!) The story is by Jean Giono, the illustrations (such exquisite wood engravings) by Michael McCurdy. A noted French writer, Giono has written more than 30 novels. He died in 1970 at 75.

The name of the man who planted trees is Elzeard Bouffier. Giono said the purpose of his story “was to make people love the tree, or more precisely, to make them love planting trees.” Through Giono, we first meet Elzeard Bouffier before the outbreak of the First World War, then when the war is over, then again before the outbreak of the Second World War and finally at the end of it.

Giono, the storyteller, describes where he first met Bouffier: “About 40 years ago I was taking a long trip on foot over mountain heights quite unknown to tourists, in that ancient region where the Alps thrust down into Provence. All this, at the time I embarked upon my long walk through these deserted regions, was barren colorless land. Nothing grew there but wild lavender.”

In this god-forsaken land lived Bouffier, “a man of great simplicity and determination.” Bouffier, who had lost his wife and children, resettled in this desolate place in Southern France. With only his dog and sheep for company, he started his monumental work—planting a hundred acorns every day of his life.

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Season of immense grieving, immense giving

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

Storm “Sendong” struck in the wee hours when most people were asleep. Weather experts and forecasters were stunned upon beholding the aftermath of Sendong’s force and fury. But it was not Sendong’s wrath from the sky alone that caused the destruction. Elements on the ground conspired—silted rivers and congested riverbanks, poor urban drainage systems, denuded forests. It was not all Sendong’s fault. There surely will be a time for fault-finding. It didn’t have to be as bad as this.

And yes, this had been predicted three years ago, foretold, if you may, not by armchair doomsday soothsayers, but by individuals and groups that have been working on the ground and using science so that the authorities and their constituencies could be forewarned and be prepared. They were laughed out of the room. (Read “Sendong disaster foretold 3 years ago” by Kristine L. Alave, Inquirer, 12/20/11.)

Everything in words has been said about the immensity of the grief of the people who survived last weekend’s calamity that visited the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan as well as other Mindanao and Visayan areas. But there are not enough words.

Almost a thousand dead and countless still missing. The counting continues. The live images of devastation that stream on the TV screen, the still images on print, the wailing, the weeping. Dead people, dead animals, debris, mud, water, wreckage, decay. Hunger, thirst, disease, and worst of all, immeasurable loss. How to go on living when one’s loved ones have been suddenly swept away without warning, only to be found lifeless in the most unlikely places, disfigured and wrapped in sticky mud?

We think we have seen enough tragedies in this world. But sometimes our defenses are pulled away suddenly and we experience the rawness of it all. On TV one beholds a solitary mother squatting and cradling her muddied baby, limp and lifeless. There are no tears in her eyes, no words from her lips, but on her mouth is a frozen scream. You find yourself breaking into sobs.

Journalists don’t easily shed tears. Or we seldom do. Not when we are on coverage. There is a protective shield that we put between us and the subject matter before us so that we don’t cross the divide. The shield or armor could take the form of a tape recorder, a microphone, a camera, a notebook, a moving pen. The deadline. The press ID. These set us comfortably apart. And when everything is over, we think we can stand up and easily leave, leave behind all that we have caught in our electronic gadgets or on paper and proceed to write in isolation about the discomfiting scenes we have witnessed, the tearing grief, the despair.

But that is not always the case. There are times when one has to lay down one’s arms, so to speak, and simply listen and be there because that is the best way to catch it all (the journalist switching to another mode). Or because it is the human thing to do.

I recall the time I was at the Payatas dump right after it collapsed on hundreds of waste pickers and on hundreds of homes around it. That was in July 2000. The most heart-rending scene for me was not how the dead bodies were being pulled out one after another from under the foul heap. It was watching a man who was waiting for his dead mother, pregnant wife and child to be brought into the chapel. They were among the first to be found, placed in coffins and brought to the chapel near the dump.

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'Dominus est!"

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

“But in our weariness the Lord comes.” That is a quote from the homily of newly installed Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle DD delivered on Dec. 12 at the Manila Cathedral.

At that moment of recognition, at that moment when we finally see clearly, we gasp in awe, “It is the Lord!” Dominus est! This exclamation, Tagle reminds us, is drawn from the Risen Christ’s appearance to some of his weary disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. It is, I must say, one of the most dramatic post-Resurrection scenes in the Bible. “Dominus est!” is Tagle’s episcopal motto.

We are a long way from Eastertide. We are in the Advent season of waiting and crying out, “Maranatha!” But somehow, “Dominus est” seems apropos in this time of weary waiting.

The announcement on the papal appointment of Tagle, 54, as head of the Philippines’ most prominent archdiocese and his installation last Monday was among the few pleasant news events this Advent season. And so we gratefully say goodbye to retiring Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales who is known for his gentle leadership and love for the poor.

For weeks now we have been barraged with unsettling news that put us on edge and in near despair. Even as we embark on seeking justice for past wrongs done by the powerful, even as we long to see evildoers pay for their evil deeds, so many roadblocks are placed along the way. Will the big fish get away?

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25 Years: Nobody told me it'd be like this

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

Twenty-five years and some 2,000 feature articles, special/investigative reports, and column pieces later, here I am still asking: Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this?

I’ve had an amazing time. Amazing, meaning I have been privy to so many things of this world that other mortals are not because “they are not there.” Oh “to be there” where people live and die, feast and famish, laugh and cry, to be there where events unfold and to watch history leave its tracks behind for us to decipher and to be sometimes awed and humbled enough to make us fall on our knees in thanksgiving and sometimes in mourning.

To be there where the heavens opened and hell broke loose. To watch great lives, small lives, dirty lives, fascinating lives, beautiful lives, incredible lives rise and fall, bloom, break into a thousand pieces or become whole again.

On Wednesday, 44 employees, I among them, were honored for 25 years of service to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and its mission. We are this year’s Silvers. Also honored were those who have completed 20, 15 and 10 years with the Inquirer. For every milestone, the Inquirer gifts us with a precious token in gold—real gold. And more.

Dec. 9, 1985 is the actual founding date of the Inquirer, now the country’s biggest in circulation and with a staggering global reach. So Friday is the Inquirer’s 26th anniversary. I’ve been with the Inquirer for 25 years and nine months. I joined on March 5, 1986, a few days after the People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Before that, I had already been contributing articles to the Inquirer, a new kid on the block then, and also to its feisty sister, the weekly Mr. & Ms. Special Edition (published by Eggie Apostol and edited by Letty J. Magsanoc) and to the so-called “alternative/mosquito press.” These publications played a huge role in bringing down the dictatorship.

We had paid a price for all that daring. And a price we also later demanded. Last February, a number of us in the press got our first taste of justice in the form of initial compensation from the Marcos estate. We were among the almost 10,000 victims of human rights violations who had filed a class suit against the Marcoses. But that is another story.

A day after the 1986 February Revolution, I received a call from Letty Magsanoc. I was asked to join the Sunday magazine of the three-month-old Inquirer. “You start tomorrow,” she told me. And I was to fly to Leyte right away to look into the fabulous treasures left behind by Imelda Marcos who would have been turned into tiny bits by the mob that descended on Malacañang Palace had she not fled on time.

Although I was a feature writer for the magazine, I also wrote occasionally for the daily. In 1995, I asked to move to the daily so I could write more investigative and special reports. Just recently, I asked to be transferred back to the magazine, although I could also still write features for the daily. I began writing this weekly column, Human Face, in the Opinion section, in July 1991.

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Bukid Kabataan: A place to be strong, to belong

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

The happy shrieks of children blend with the sonorous mooing of the cows. The striking green of the fields compete with the blueness of the sky. The patter of little feet, the chorus of voices in the classrooms, the rising of the nuns’ chanted prayers at eventide…

Space, quiet, fresh air, dew on the grass, good food, warm arms and the healing embrace of nature. But here above all, is the child, the child who needs to become whole again.

Bukid Kabataan Center (BK), which means children’s farm, is a special place, a home for children who have never known one or who had watched theirs fall apart. Here they slowly claim their stolen childhood, name their pain and bind their wounds with the help of caring adults.

The children vibrate with energy, laughter and songs. But behind the innocent eyes and carefree mien is deep pain that these children are helped to confront. There are bright moments and bad moments. There is a time to drink the sun and a time to weep oceans.

At 9, Melan (not her real name) had already decided for herself how to fix her life, step out of her trauma and move on. Raped repeatedly by her grandfather and ostracized by her family because she was going to make a case of it in court (with help from legal and social services), she found herself in a bind.

Then Melan made a dramatic bargain. She would not testify so that the case against her abuser would be dropped – but on condition that she would never be returned to her family or next of kin, and that her family should release her for legal adoption.

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Gawad Kalinga's European tour of hope

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

As stories about corruption, crime and violence continue to hog the limelight like telenovelas gone awry, we become filled with disgust and search for answers to the question, how have we come to this? But out there are countless stories of hope that remain untold simply because we choose to look at the noisier, bloodier, sexier, more scandalous and titillating side of things.

I recently spoke with Antonio Meloto, founder of Gawad Kalinga (GK), RM Awardee and Inquirer’s 2006 Filipino of the Year and felt a surge of hope. I have written several stories about him and GK, some written long before accolades were heaped on them. The recent one I did was on GK’s Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan, which is a showcase and center for social innovation (CSI). The center is part of GK’s second phase: a 21-year vision with a road map towards a First World Philippines.

There, nestled on 14 hectares of verdant, undulating terrain is a farm, home, village and “university” rolled into one, where people’s dreams and ideas are put to the test, made to grow and become realities.

Many European students and volunteers have spent time not only at the Enchanted Farm but also in remote GK villages where they lived the life of the locals. They brought home with them amazing stories of Filipino resilience, innovation and hope.

When Meloto recently did a hectic tour of 17 universities in France and England, he was met with great enthusiasm. Among those he visited were Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Sorbonne. Students, academics, social scientists and regular folk wanted to know more about GK and hear it straight from Meloto.

Meloto’s European tour was arranged by Olivier Girault, an executive of Orange Telecom, who has great affection for the Philippines and deep compassion for the poor. For Meloto to cope with the backbreaking schedule, Girault put Meloto on an “8888 formula: 8 hours of sleep and 8 glasses of water daily; 8 speeches and 8 meetings a week.”

Meloto shared with me his reflections on his university tour. Waxing Shakespearean, he said, “From France to England, GK smells as sweet.” That trip, he said in one breath, was part of “my continuing journey of hope for the world to see the Philippines as the next miracle of Asia and for our people to discover the awesome gift from God and the amazing privilege of being Filipino today.”

I now let Meloto speak in his own words. If you want the whole transcript, send me an e-mail.

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