Woman both malakas and maganda

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

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Philippine creation myth about the first man and woman, Malakas and Maganda, became the subject of jokes and was even satirized in the underground “mosquito press” because of how the Marcoses got themselves portrayed by sycophant artists as the reincarnation of “the strong” (Malakas) and “the beautiful” (Maganda). The excesses of the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda were softened through the portrayal of their likenesses in art that drew from myths and legends.



I remember seeing a huge mural that showed the naked Malakas and Maganda about to emerge from two halves of a split bamboo. I don’t remember now where I saw it—in Leyte or in Malacañang, where I was sent on a writing assignment, after the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship. Now I wonder where that mural and versions of it are. Were they destroyed by the angry protestors that stormed Malacañang, or spirited away to some art connoisseur’s collection?



But the “Malakas at Maganda” legend is an enduring one, its desecration notwithstanding, and the mythical couple have been more than rehabilitated and reinstated in their rightful place in Philippine myths and legends. I find our own man-woman creation story more egalitarian than the Bible’s, where Eve just happened to have come from Adam’s rib. (I will get a rain of hate mail from hard-core Bible-thumpers for saying that.) In the case of Malakas and Maganda, they emerged separate but not necessarily equal from a split bamboo.

But can one only be either malakas or maganda?  Oh, yes, a woman can be both, according to a group of women artists. Currently on view at St. Scholastica’s College Museum (at the corner of Leon Guinto and P. O
campo Streets in Manila) is the “Malakas and Maganda II” exhibit of paintings, sketches, sculptures, computer-generated images and photographs by Kasibulan women artists.  



The art pieces are representations of women of strength and beauty but not in the stereotypical sense. One can say that every art piece is the artist’s projection of her own beauty and strength, her interpretation of what she has experienced in others. Several creations seemed to speak directly to me or draw me to look closer—and also farther and deeper—into a realm beyond the visual and tactile, into an inner world whence spring beauty, strength and compassion, but where dwell also pain, fear, joy, fire and daring. I do not want to single out particular creations but I can sense that no matter the mood a piece conveys, the woman factor is very evident. 
 
The exhibit is not preachy. No anti-Barbie, antipatriarchy statements. As if it is saying, this is not about them, but about us, about what we know that is beautiful and strong.


"Rosenda's Flight" by Fel R. Plata

Kasibulan (Kababaihan sa Sining at Bagong Sibol na Kamalayan) is a sisterhood of women artists in the visual, literary, performance, and new media arts. It aims to provide members with opportunities for creativity, growth, and self-sufficiency, and is working for the development of distinct women’s expression.

The exhibit is for the benefit of St. Scholastica’s Hospital in Pambujan, Northern Samar. The Missionary Benedictine Sisters are raising P100 million for the long-term sustainable operation of the 25-bed hospital for the poor. I wrote about this three months ago (“A mission hospital for the poor,” 4/11/13) and I provided information on how donors could help. The chief fundraiser, Sr. Mary John Mananzan, OSB, texted me then to say that she had received a “tsunami” of inquiries from far and near, but I said, let’s see how these will translate into equipment and salaries. The building has been spoken for. 

Read More

And the angels came: Fr. Villote, "erps" to the young and lost, 80

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

And the angels came.

That was what Fr. Ruben Juco Villote used to say whenever people shared their blessings with the Center for Migrant Youth (CMY), which the diocesan priest founded 31 years ago for young men and boys with nowhere to go in the big city.

Friday, July 6, at 5 a.m., the angels came for him and took him home for good. Villote or “Erps,” as the well-loved priest was fondly called, died after cardiopulmonary arrest at CMY in Quezon City. He was 80. Villote had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years and had been in and out of hospital for treatment.

Villote wrote a column titled “The Word” for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine for many years until 2005. His pieces have been compiled into several volumes, among them “Empowered by His Wounds” and “A Clown Among Many.” Drawing inspiration from his pastoral work among ordinary folk, he wrote in a simple, readable style that everyone understood.

Among the parishes where Villote served were the University of the Philippines Parish of the Holy Sacrifice, where, as assistant pastor, he ministered to a generation of activist students, faculty and employees. He also served in parishes in Tipas in Taguig and Sta. Ana in Manila.

Like the Good Shepherd

After serving in parishes for many years, Villote, with the help of a small but committed group of lay persons, devoted his life to serving the youth through CMY. His wards called him Erps, short for erpat, Filipino slang for father or the Latin pater. Countless youths have sought temporary shelter, education and community life in CMY. Many came hurt and aimless, angry and alone, wounded and desperate. Many left healed and whole, ready to find their places in the world and enrich others’ lives along the way. One even gave up his life to save someone.

In CMY, Villote said, the young learn to trust and be trusted in return, and to give and receive affirmation and reverence. “To be the best they could ever be for the future,” he added. CMY is a special ministry established under the Archdiocese of Manila that included Quezon City during the time of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin. “It is our Mother, the Church, offering her presence to her wounded and defenseless children,” Villote told this writer then. “This is the specific place where I am being called to meet Christ in the poor and where I am invited to share His poverty and shame.”

He described his ministry as like that of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 who are well to look for the one who is lost. It was always a special day when a former CMY resident came back to talk about his new life, he said. Many had gone on to become caring individuals, their success measured not in terms of financial returns but in the way they lived their lives, Villote said.

Masses springing to life

Bishop Honesto F. Ongtioco of the Cubao diocese, to which Villote belonged, said Villote “incarnated the Word of God in his life and in caring for others, especially the migrant youth. He touched many lives with his simplicity, humility and commitment.”

Masses at CMY had always been intimate and interactive—actually a mark of the parishes where Villote had worked. Villote’s homilies were simple but deep. He spoke softly and sparingly but carried a big message. Some years ago, however, his memory started to fail and he lost his ability to communicate.

In the 1970s, many people went all the way to Tipas, Taguig, to experience the liturgy with its glorious music and interact with the fisherfolk. The indigenous color was hard to miss. After Tipas, Villote was assigned to a small parish in Punta, Sta. Ana in Manila, where the parishioners were mostly factory workers. Again, the Masses sprang to life.

But it was really in the University of the Philippines Parish of the Holy Sacrifice that Villote first broke ground as a young assistant pastor. There, he experienced the exuberance and activism of the young, as well as the challenge of intellectual life.

CMY’s Sunday Masses—on Cordillera Street in Quezon City for 23 years and in Fairview for the past eight years—had that Villote touch that made them special. Vibrant Filipino music and sharing of personal reflections made the interactive liturgy alive but intimate. The Philippine flag was always displayed prominently. A small potluck repast capped the liturgy. During the Christmas season, he held special gatherings for street dwellers who often visited the center.

"Josefino"

Born on Dec. 19, 1932, Villote was raised in prewar Tondo, Manila. He studied in public schools and went later to the Jesuit-run San Jose Seminary for diocesan priests. He idolized his Jesuit mentors. He belonged to Class 1959 and was ordained that same year. “We carry the marks of Christ’s passion in our bodies,” the “Josefino” said of his class of four. “Proof of the paschal holocaust we have had to offer through many years as victim-priests on the altar of the Master.”

In 2005, due to his failing health, Villote decided to stop writing his Sunday Inquirer Magazine column. In an interview for a magazine Christmas cover story, he said: “We must gradually move away from the sweet and pious rituals of the First Coming of Christ. We must journey towards the more radical and painful work of renewing the world and restoring all things in Christ so that justice and righteousness may begin to prevail in the New Heaven and the New Earth as a sign of the Second Coming.”

Villote is survived by his brother Rolly, sister-in-law Bess, nephew Jonathan and relatives, as well as his extended family of loyal friends and the “young-once” he had helped.

His remains lie at Loyola Memorial Chapel on Commonwealth Avenue until noon Sunday, at the University of the Philippines Diliman Parish of the Holy Sacrifice until Tuesday morning and at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Cubao until Wednesday morning.#

Read More

Church's second best kept secret

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

If the social teachings of the Catholic Church are sometimes considered its best kept secret, meaning that most Catholics do not know about them, or Church leaders have not made them known enough for members to live by them, what is its second best kept secret?
Not the scandals—sexual, financial or political—for these have occupied enough media space and air time. Not the hidden saintly lives worth emulating, for they come into the light sooner or later and gain following. Not the enormous wealth of the institution vis à vis the chosen poverty of those who wish to follow Jesus to the letter, for these sharp contrasts are obvious.

The Church’s “second best kept secret”—as those who wish to see it popularized and practiced impatiently call it—is the natural family planning (NFP) method. Second best kept secret because in spite of its supposed efficacy, not many know about it. Second best kept secret because those who should be advocating it (those fulminating against the recently passed Reproductive Health Law) are spending their energy badmouthing the RH advocates instead of buckling down to work to promote NFP. They are losing by default.

NFP is one of many means to plan family sizes or space births that the Catholic Church approves of, all the rest—contraceptives, abortion, vasectomy and tubal ligation—being anathema. Two weeks ago I attended the daylong “Orientation to Population and Development” which tackled “challenges to the Filipino family today.”

Among the event’s objectives was for participants to gain insight from the experiences in NFP of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro (CDO) and to engage Church people in a dialogue of faith on population and development issues. Also on the agenda was to explore areas of collaboration among Church and people’s groups in working for the wellbeing of Filipino families. The organizers were from the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (Urban Missionaries, Women and Gender Concerns, and Center for Migrant Concerns) in partnership with the Philippine Center for Population and Development (PCPD). The gathering was an exercise in listening.

Read More

Malakas at Maganda II: Women's Group Exhibit of Power and Beauty

ANNOUNCEMENT/INVITATION

Kasibulan (Kababaihan sa Sining at Bagong Sibol na Kamalayan) will be launching its second “Malakas at Maganda” group exhibition series with the theme of woman being both strong and beautiful. The exhibit opens on July 6, Saturday, 4pm at the St. Scholastica’s Museum on Vito Cruz Street, Malate, Manila, with Guests of Honor Ceres Doyo, Tina Monzon-Palma, and Maan Hontiveros. The exhibit runs until August 3.

The exhibit project is for the benefit of St. Scholastica’s Hospital in Pambujan, Northern Samar. Sister Mary John Mananzan, OSB, has spearheaded the building of the 25-bed hospital, which will serve the poorest in this community in critical need.

The exhibit is the second leg of the Malakas at Maganda series that showcases the Kasibulan artists’ definitions of women’s power, which includes the power to lead, govern, inspire, encourage, and effect change. In one legend of the creation of humans, the man was named “Malakas” (Strong), and the Woman “Maganda” (Beautiful), which perpetrates the stereotype that only man is capable of being strong, and woman should only strive to be beautiful. To claim the term “Malakas at Maganda” to describe a woman is thus to claim virtues that she naturally possesses: she is strong, and she is beautiful.

“Malakas at Maganda II” features artists Vivian Nocum Limpin, Brenda V. Fajardo, June Dalisay, Anna Fer, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Julie Lluch, Baidy Mendoza, Doris G. Rodriguez, Elaine Lopez-Clemente, Charito Bitanga, Aba Lluch Dalena, Susan Fetalvero Roces, Yasmin Almonte, Lea Lim, Eden T. Ocampo, Tinsley Garanchon, Amihan Jumalon, Arlene Villaver, Christine Sioco, Fel R. Plata, Lot Arboleda, Lenore RS Lim, Bernadette R. Reyes, Anne Carmela Rosario, Athena Magcase-Lopez, and Nicole Anne Asis.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a Kasibulan Arts Bazaar on July 6 from 10am until 7pm, and will feature book art pieces from Veronica Laurel, and other artist-made crafts from the other members. Kasibulan will also hold Artist Talks at St. Scholastica’s Museum, on July 12, Friday, 10am – 12nn, on the topic “The Babaylan in the Modern Age”, with main speaker National Historical Commissioner Fe Mangahas, Marjorie Evasco and Imelda Cajipe – Endaya. Artist Talk on July 26, Friday, 10am – 12nn, on the topic “Traditional Art in the Age of New Media”, with main speaker UP Department of Art Studies Professor Eileen Legaspi Ramirez, Vivian N, Limpin and Glenda Maye Abad, moderated by Bebang Siy.

Both talks are open to the public. Exhibit closing: Sketch session with guest artist Lynette Villariba.

Kasibulan is a sisterhood of women artists in the visual, literary, performance, and new media arts, with the mission of providing members with opportunities for creativity, growth, and self-sufficiency, and working for the development of distinct women's expression.

Contact Details: For more details, please call Veronica Laurel at (63 926) 124-3539 or Doris G. Rodriguez at (63 917) 583-4294.

Read More

Privatizing Philippine Orthopedic Center

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

In 1998, the centennial year of Philippine independence from Spain, I was assigned to do a Sunday Inquirer Magazine cover story on centenarians (“Lives of the Century,” 6/7/98). One of them was Dr. Jose de los Santos, then 100 years old. He agreed to be interviewed at the family-owned hospital named after him. When we met he was wearing a crisp white doctor’s jacket and a broad smile on his face.

Not many know that the doctor was a war hero and one of the founders of the iconic National Orthopedic Hospital, now the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC) and to be renamed Center for Bone and Joint Disease, Trauma and Rehabilitation Medicine when it is privatized under the Aquino administration’s public-private partnership (PPP) program.

Called the “Father of Philippine Orthopedics,” De los Santos was the hospital’s founder and first head, and the founder and first president of the Philippine Orthopedic Association. De los Santos’ story (excerpts below) came to mind when I learned about the impending privatization of POC and the protests by health, church and advocacy groups who find the move detrimental to the hospital’s poor patients and employees.

The 700-bed POC is the only specialized orthopedic government hospital in the country. Located in Quezon City, it has 940 employees. In 2010 it attended to 5,347 service patients and 1,266 paying patients. It serves poor patients with bone and joint injuries and diseases for free—and free does not mean low-quality. Despite a challenged budget, it has some of the best bone doctors and other health personnel.

The Coalition Against the Privatization of POC questions the move to turn the hospital into “the country’s first health project under the PPP program.” This is part of the Aquino administration’s Kalusugan Pangkalahatan (universal health care) that promises increased affordability and accessibility to health care.

The POC is among several government hospitals in the PPP offering, among which are the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, San Lazaro Hospital, Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Medical Center, and Jose R. Reyes Memorial Centers.

Here is a briefer from the coalition: The P5.7-billion project approved by President Aquino on Sept. 8, 2012, involves a 25-year contract for the construction, operation and maintenance of a 700-bed hospital inside the National Kidney and Transplant Institute compound in Quezon City. Nine big corporations offered bids but later reportedly backed out. In the end, only one bidder, Megawide Construction Corp., was left. Construction starts in 2014; expected completion is 2016.

The coalition accuses the government of turning health into profitable business and asks: Where will poor patients go? On a given day, 450-500 poor outpatients come for free services; 80-90 percent of inpatients depend on free procedures, medicines and supplies. The hospital stay of trauma patients may take two months and many poor families have to solicit money for expensive metal screws and implants. With its dwindling budget, the POC had to raise rates in radiology and lab procedures. It can no longer offer totally free services.

Credit goes to the ICM sisters in the adjacent convent who minister to and even offer dwelling to poor patients.

In the “modernized” POC under private investors, 420 beds will be for PhilHealth members, 70 for the poor whose expenses will be sponsored by the private operator, and 210 for paying patients. Therapy and metal prostheses will be shouldered by patients. If the 70 beds for the poor are filled, poor patients will be transferred to other facilities of the Department of Health.

And what about the 940 POC workers? Health Secretary Enrique Ona was quoted as saying that no one will lose a job as a result of the POC’s modernization. But the coalition says that in the bid documents, the DOH shall offer the POC staff the options of early retirement, severance/termination of employment, and applying to the project proponent, which will have “the freedom to select employees who wish to transfer” and which is “not under obligation to recognize the existing union.”

The coalition emphasizes that people’s health should not be left entirely in the hands of private investors and that the government, if it is indeed sincere in improving people’s health, should allot adequate funds and invest in public health services.

Here are excerpts from my 1998 article on the Father of Philippine Orthopedics: There is a well-documented story in the 1945-1946 issue of the USA Catholic Digest that tells of the heroism of Dr. De los Santos, the orthopedic surgeon who blazed a trail for bone and joint surgery in the Philippines. It was written by Blake Clark, an American who witnessed how the brave “little doctor of Mandaluyong” used every scrap available, every drop, every morsel of anything in order to save lives…

The doctor’s creativity was likewise put to the test. He and his assistants made improvised pulleys and weights for the patients. They turned empty crates into support instruments for injured legs and backs, they turned lead wires into brackets and parachute shroudlines into traction lines. Discarded beer cans were filled with sand and used as weights. From wrecked planes, they salvaged aluminum that was turned into braces…

When you hear about the great things they do at the government orthopedic hospital that De los Santos founded, you would not at once realize that these had their beginnings in the ruins of the war, in the midst of twisted steel and smoldering iron bars, among people with mangled limbs and flesh that had been ripped apart, among the wounded, the dying and the dead…. ( I will post the entire article in my blogsite.) #

Read More

CComedia's statement on the cruel rape joke

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

The furor did not die instantly, and the issue on rape being the subject of jokes will rankle as long as rape continues to be made a laughing matter. There have been discussions, reflections and reactions in print and online (not much on TV where the cause of the furor belongs) on the rape joke that was heard and laughed at by thousands in a live concert and later viewed with shock online.

I received loads of e-mails from readers who agreed with what I wrote, and a few from those who disagreed, some with spurious bastos e-mail sender names. (Was I able to trace where they came from?)



There were many discussions online and on Facebook that I followed, mostly among strong, conscientious women who have been working with women from all sectors of society, for women’s rights, women’s health, gender equality, etc. They have been doing their advocacy work in so many creative ways only women can think of. Don’t count the men out; many have participated in and supported moves to right the wrongs many women have suffered.

No need to do a blow-by-blow account here of what had transpired. The statement below is the result of group discussions of women and men concerned about how the media and media persons still regard women and the violence they endure as laughing matter. The statement comes from the Concerned Consumers of Media (CComedia). The sound of the name of the group suggests that it embraces comedy, but with a but.

The signatories sent a backgrounder: “In light of the recent incident of Vice Ganda making rape into a joke, and previous incidents involving other media personalities trivializing rape, a group of women and men have found it necessary to make public their stand against this and to let media owners, managers and personalities know that media can do something to be of better service to the public, most especially to women.”

The statement is titled “An Open Letter to the Owners, Managers and Staff of Print and Broadcast Media Outlets, Including TV Entertainers.” It was posted online last night so that people could begin adding their signatures. This is the statement in full:

Read More

Two books on crises and hope

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

On my table are two newly published books that deserve thoughtful readers who would be moved to act positively to bring about change. I am not an official book reviewer of the Inquirer, but every now and then I, a reader of books and books, feature books in this space to call attention to them.

One of the two books is “Altar of Secrets: Sex, Politics, and Money in the Philippine Catholic Church” (211 pages) by Aries C. Rufo, published by Journalism for Nation Building Foundation. It is described as “the first of its kind in the Philippines” and exposes sexual misconduct, political interference and financial mismanagement by bishops and priests.

I must say that in the sexual-misconduct category, Rufo’s book is not the first of its kind, having been immediately preceded by “That They May Dance Again: Rising from Violence Against Women in the Philippine Catholic Church” (2011) by Maryknoll’s Sr. Nila Bermisa. Her book was published by the Women and Gender Commission of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines.

I mention the latter to show that members of the Catholic Church, the religious women particularly, have not been remiss in exposing hidden ills that plague it.

Rufo asks: “Why a book on the Catholic Church?” And of this nature? His answer: “This book attempts to make an honest portrayal of the men in white vestments. It seeks to demystify the people perched on a moral high ground and aims to show that they are as human as we are—vulnerable to mistakes, faults and wrongdoing, and susceptible to temptation.”

That, people have known for centuries. So what is new—if there is anything new—in this book that has not been exposed before? My own answer is: It does not have to be new, there could be more of the same. What is new is the fresh insights of a journalist who has broken into “one of the most impenetrable and least scrutinized institutions in the Philippines,” to use the words in the book’s Introduction by Marites Danguilan Vitug, president of Journalism for Nation Building.

Read More

Pastors living with HIV/AIDS

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
 
In this age of public disclosures of personal matters by well-known personalities, it still comes as a surprise—discomfiting, but also profoundly moving—for church persons in responsible positions to come out to disclose they are HIV-positive.
 
Here in the Philippines are two esteemed visitors, Reverend Canon Dr. Gideon Byamugisha of Uganda and Reverend Rosemary Phumzile Mabizela of South Africa. Both are positive for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) that could lead to the life-threatening AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).

Both are outspoken advocates for the removal of the stigma attached to persons living with HIV/AIDS. Both remain in active service in their churches and in HIV/AIDS-related international campaigns. Both are still here in the Philippines as guests of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines’ Cosmopolitan Church in Manila.  

I was fortunate and honored to have met the two advocates, along with Elijah Fung of a Hong Kong-based HIV education center at a forum last Monday. Fung is in touch with overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong.
 
HIV/AIDS, which first burst into the medical scene in the 1980s, has long been associated—often erroneously—only with irresponsible sexual behavior and drug use through syringes when in fact there are a number of other ways of transmitting and contracting the virus. This had added to the stigma attached to being HIV-positive.

Read More

Sue Vice Ganda

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

For the topic of today’s column I had to choose between the land mines (internationally banned in warfare) that the communist New People’s Army laid to kill policemen en route to a hospital in Cagayan or the disgusting, distasteful and hurtful antiwomen rape jokes that ABS-CBN’s TV host Vice Ganda cracked during his recent live show at a huge venue. I chose the latter which, I fear, many might dismiss as “just jokes.”

I watched on YouTube a video clip that showed the popular gay TV host making a laughing matter of what is considered a sensitive subject and showing his disregard for victims of rape, a most crushing crime against women, men or children. And worse, he did this at the expense of a respected, hardworking, multiawarded TV journalist from rival TV network GMA-7, Jessica Soho.

I also read on Facebook the posts by shocked and angry netizens.

You can view on Facebook or YouTube the video footage that shows Vice Ganda wearing a glittering swimsuit-style costume with faux enormous breasts cum enormous nipples, the evidence of his vanished manhood tightly tucked away from sight to make him look like pop singer Madonna.

No gay-bashing here. Vice Ganda could have been a macho man and still deserve censure for his hurtful jokes against rape victims and those with health problems. Because he’s gay who mightily projects himself as feminine, we expect him to have empathy for rape victims who are women. Pardon my thinking Freudian here, but was his thoughtlessness a case of v-envy? Seriously, he better explore his subconscious with the help of a psychologist.

Cruelty and viciousness were what Vice Ganda unleashed—with thousands watching—when he conjured up a gang-rape scenario where Jessica was the victim. It had to be gang rape, Vice Ganda suggested, to stress Jessica’s weight condition. He also made jokes about a talking weighing scale and, nauseatingly, his imagined victim’s underwear. All these, while a high-ranking executive of his home network, Charo Santos-Concio, was shown laughing in the audience. (She should have walked out.)

Read More

Becoming the world's most bullied

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

In 2000 I covered the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo that investigated and tried atrocities against women in countries occupied by Japan during World War II. This was some 60 years after the war crimes were committed. The trial was initiated by civil society, human rights and women’s groups from Asia, Europe and the host country, Japan.

The Philippine delegates, some 20 former sex slaves/comfort women, all in their twilight years, had suffered rape and other cruelties in the hands of Japanese soldiers. I had written about this in the Inquirer (“Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” Dec. 5, 2000) and the piece is included in my latest book (“Human Face: A Journalist’s Encounters and Awakenings,” Anvil Publishing and Inquirer Books, 2013). I need not repeat here what I had written.

What I did notice then was how delegations from countries with emerging economies or going up the world’s center stage—for example, South Korea and China—brought in their women survivors with dramatic aplomb, festering rage and showiness. In contrast, those from the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, North Korea and Taiwan were more subdued, but no less zealous in their quest for justice.

If the complainants did not get direct profuse apologies and material compensation from the Japanese government, they had at least poetic justice when documents previously hidden were presented for the first time to prove that unspeakable crimes had indeed been committed. This, despite the postwar Japanese government’s deliberate attempt to destroy war documents that had to do with violations of international laws and its refusal to make documents available.

Now what do we make of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s statement that the use of comfort women was “necessary” to keep battle-stressed soldiers in fighting form? His comments sparked outrage among Asian countries and even drew US criticism. Agence France-Presse cited a survey showing that a large majority of Japanese disagreed with the mayor’s position.

This is the 21st century, we are in the third millennium, and Hashimoto does not know that having sex slaves is a crime against humanity?

Shouldn’t Filipinos file a protest?

Lola Tomasa Salinog of Antique and Lola Rosa Henson of Pampanga, two of the most vocal former comfort women who had emerged from the shadows to tell their stories before they passed on, must be turning in their graves. Salinog was present at the Tokyo tribunal and refused compensation if it was not from the Japanese government.

Our country and people have been trashed these past months—through words and deeds—by bullies or bully countries that think they can get away with it. China suddenly extends its boundaries and claims the Philippines’ Panatag Shoal. It also wants for itself the entire Spratly island chain that is being claimed wholly or partly by several other countries including the Philippines.

Throwing away diplomatic protocol, Taiwan’s leaders would want our President no less to grovel before them, to apologize and make amends on their own terms, for the death of one Taiwanese fisherman during an encounter between a Taiwanese fishing vessel and the Philippine Coast Guard at the Balintang Channel. Philippine representatives have been sent to Taiwan but they were treated badly despite ongoing investigations. The belligerent Taiwanese want to call it murder.

Read More

Unless the poor...

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

The late feisty lawyer Haydee Yorac, when approached by distraught persons complaining about their mayor (newly elected or reelected, I don’t remember), stared down the complainants and, with characteristic brusqueness, said: “Bakit, ibinoto ko ba ang mayor nyo (Why, did I vote for your mayor)?”

                                                                                                                                                                       Inquirer photo

Ouch. The subtext of her acerbic quip was: You get what you deserve, now you complain? Oh, but don’t we miss her, this frizzy-haired former chair of the Commission on Elections whose fave invocation was “Fiat justitia ruat caelum (Let justice be done though the heavens fall)”?

Here are my postelection ruminations. With the midterm elections just over and the results out so fast, thanks to automation, grumbles can now be heard on why certain corrupt and undeserving candidates won, or how a perceived cad of a reelectionist could get a new mandate, or how babes in the woods came out victorious simply because they had money to burn.

Self-styled political analysts suddenly emerge from the woodwork with their good two cents, opinion makers hog the airwaves, cafés are abuzz with morning-after discussions. We all have something to say about the conduct of the elections, how TV campaign ads worked or didn’t work, the so-called Catholic vote (if there was or wasn’t), the mounds of trash from candidates, the wanton disregard for election rules, etc., etc.

But an oft-repeated refrain is: The masa kasi. The poor masses are blamed for not voting right, the poor whose votes were bought by candidates with immense power and wealth, the poor who owe the candidates debts of gratitude (utang na loob), the poor who, because of need, fear or ignorance voted wrong, the poor who voted not with their head but with their outstretched palm, the poor who are ignorant and who can see only as far as their next day’s meals.

Read More

Gutsy moms who know but don't approve

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


Quoting Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Dirge Without Music” was how Lydia de la Paz, mother of slain physician Dr. Remberto “Bobby” de la Paz, began her speech that became a classic during the dark days of martial rule. She was speaking these words to fellow mothers, who had lost their sons and daughters to the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship, at the 1985 founding of Mothers and Relatives Against Tyranny (Martyr):

“Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave/ Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind/ Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, and the brave./ I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

No, she was not resigned.

“No, I am not resigned to Bobby’s sudden, brutal, horrifying death,” she said. “How can I, when I know that he went to Samar—a brand new physician with a brand-new wife, vibrant with life, brimming with energy, joyous…”

A 1976 graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, Bobby de la Paz was killed by soldiers in April 1982 in his small clinic in Catbalogan, Samar. His death caused national outrage. His widow, Dr. Sylvia de la Paz, as well as his mother Lydia and next of kin, found refuge in the movement for justice.

“Suddenly he is no more. Why? He went there because he wanted to serve the people,” the grieving mother said of his son, who was killed during a medical mission for the rural poor. “He was shot repeatedly because he did not ask his patients to pay what they could not afford; he was brutalized because he could go into any barrio, distant or near, morning, noon or night alone; ‘to relieve often, to heal sometimes, to comfort always,’ he treated military and rebel alike and for that, he had to die.”

As the country celebrates Mother’s Day today, we remember the mothers who fought hard and without letup during the years of terror—1972 to 1986—to achieve justice for their offspring and freedom for the motherland. Today’s mothers are often pictured as warm, sweet-smelling and cuddling types or as superwomen at home and at work; women of glamour and substance who deserve pampering at this time of year; great providers, innovators, carers, givers; and the kind for magazine covers and who can sell milk supplements, instant noodles and condominium units.

 

There are mothers and there were mothers.

Read More