Empowered women farmers

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

Filipinos have a way of using superlatives when they see a how-good-can-it-get situation. So let me say: Women farmers na, empowered pa.

That is said with the supposition that being a woman farmer is not (or should no longer be) a burden but a blessing, not a diminishment of status and gender but an empowered state of being. Of course, the ideal is still far from what is happening on the ground. But maybe romanticizing the image of woman as farmer might help remove the stigma attached to working the soil, growing food and harvesting the fruits of the earth. But why shouldn’t that be a cherished calling if not a chosen way of life?

I know a number of well-educated women who turned their back on professional careers that many covet. Off they went to answer the call of the wild, so to speak, to nourish and bring back to life the fallow earth. These women’s immersion can even be described as spiritual. They have emerged from the experience richer and fuller in substance and in essence.

They personify the spirit of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture and bounty in Roman mythology. (Ceres’ Filipino counterpart is Ikapati. The word “cereal” comes from Ceres.) Fecund and fertile, she is usually depicted carrying grain and fruits of the earth. ]

March being International Women’s Month, those in the gender equality advocacy are calling attention to the role of women in the fight against hunger. And 2014 being the International Year of Family Farming, there is even more reason that women in farming families should be more visible.

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'Let it go,' sisters

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


Let’s have a roaring Women’s Month!
“Let it go, let it go/And I’ll rise like the break of dawn/Let it go, let it go/ That perfect girl is gone/Here I stand, in the light of day/Let the storm rage on!” That’s from the Oscar-winning song in the movie “Frozen.”

In her groundbreaking book “Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye,” Madonna Kolbenschlag writes: “All fairy tales are about transformation, metamorphosis. There are two recurring variations on the theme: One, in which the heroine’s situation is suddenly, dramatically and instantly changed for the better—usually by some extrinsic intervention.” (Our Filipino “Darna” must belong to this first kind.)

“The other, in which the change or revelation takes place after a long, arduous struggle and is the result of the heroine’s own growth in self-knowledge and moral capacity. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ belongs to this latter kind.”

And so does “Frozen,” the 2013 blockbuster Disney animated movie (grossing more than $1 billion at the box office as of today) that is gaining a cult following and has enthralled kids and adults alike. It merited three whole pages in Time magazine.

The movie’s signature song, “Let it go” by Fil-Am composer Robert Lopez and wife Kristin Anderson-Lopez, was named best song in last Monday’s Oscars; the movie itself was best in animation (more than 85 million hits on YouTube).

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Remembering and recording corruption

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

If I were a whistle-blower testifying in court or a Senate hearing on what I know, critics may dismiss me as not credible. Why? Because I present too many details and my testimony sounds too rehearsed and contrived. People normally do not remember too many details about the past, the insignificant stuff especially, that, if I may argue, can in fact add credence to my testimony.

Damned if you do remember, damned if you don’t.

Remembering with precision is now raised before whistle-blowers on the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam. While alleged scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles said too many I-don’t-knows and invoked her right to stay mum many times at a Senate hearing, main whistle-blower Benhur Luy provided many details.

Not everything Luy presented came straight out of that part of his brain where memory resides. A lot of the damning stuff came from his notebooks, lists, and other hard and soft copies that he kept while he was working with Napoles. While much of the stuff may be considered official documents (receipts, vouchers and checks used in business transactions), some are personal in nature (lists and scribbles on a notebook).

I don’t intend to be a whistle-blower someday, but I keep a lot of hard and soft stuff related to my work as a journalist that I can dig up at a moment’s notice to buttress or enhance an article I am working on. I fancy thinking that some of these may someday become pieces needed to complete a jigsaw puzzle or solve a mystery.

Once I dug up my old reporter’s notebooks to find out if a person I had interviewed in the distant past had casually mentioned something that might cast doubts on this person’s later statement about a crime committed.

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Children's letters to children

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

A letter of a Hawaiian child to a Supertyphoon “Yolanda” child survivor said: “Even though your parents are not there for you, doesnt mean they left you. They will love you with there hearts. I’m sorry for your loss. But just remember that they love you but they will always be there for you. There’s a part inside of you telling you they love you with their heart. But that part inside of you is just pushing to get through your body to tell you your parents are there. Love, Merry.”
Kindness, generosity and service without borders are becoming the new normal. Even from the children. While it is always the hurting, traumatized and orphaned children that tear our hearts to pieces, it is also the children that brighten the landscape. Despite their wounds, they seem to have a way of bringing forth survival instincts that will propel them forward into the distance.

And what is it about children that they are able to empathize with fellow children and say words that come from deep inside? I received copies of children’s letters, such as the one quoted in the first paragraph, some with illustrations, for child survivors of Yolanda. These came from children in Hawaii.

The letters were sent by Italian Gigi Cocquio, a former missionary priest who worked in the Tondo slums and was deported by Marcosian decree during the martial law years. Now based in Hawaii, Cocquio farms and works with children in the poorest part of Makaha in Hawaii. I visited his farm many years ago when I was on the island as a journalism fellow.

Cocquio coursed the letters, which were made into an album, through Ed Gerlock, a former Maryknoll missionary (also a martial law deportee) who now works among the elderly poor in Metro Manila. Said Gerlock of the letters: “They are quite moving—and a few are better than most sermons I hear these days. Whew! heavy spirituality from the fourth grade.”

The cover of the album is handmade. On it is stated: “Makaha Elementary 4th Grade Aloha for the Philippines.” Here are some letters that I randomly chose from the many:

“Dear Frinds I hope you get better, I am sorry it happened. You okay? I hope you get food soon. Love Mariah Camerie.” It has hearts on it.

“Dear Frinds in the Philippines I sorry that the storm came. If you are scade do these thigs mack you feel better. First you can put your hands to gether and think of something good to get the scary stuf away. Playing is a good thing to do becasye it is for being kind is good to get the scary stuf away. If you be kind bad things wont happen to you got to do three tips to get the scary sruf away. Aloha, Frank.”

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Appeal to AMRSP for prophetic presence

Today I give space to a letter of appeal from Brother Karl Gaspar, a Redemptorist alternately based in the Visayas and Mindanao. Karl is known in the religious sector as one who does theology in the grassroots, among the masa, the disenfranchised and the indigenous groups. Before he joined religious life, Karl was a church activist, organizer and political detainee. He has a doctorate in Philippine studies, is a teacher and the author of seven books, among them “To be Poor and Obscure” and “The Masses are Messiah: Contemplating the Filipino Soul,” which I have reviewed in this space.

Karl’s letter of appeal is addressed to the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP). Here are excerpts:

“The Lord commanded me to tell the people about my sorrow and to say: May I never stop weeping, for my people are deeply wounded and are badly hurt. (Jeremiah 14:17)

“If Jeremiah were a citizen of post-‘Yolanda’ Tacloban City—as he was in Judah of the ancient days as chronicled in the Old Testament—he would speak the same words. A prophet is very much needed by God’s devastated people in Tacloban City and the rest of Leyte-Samar. I do not discount that there are prophetic voices that have risen from this landscape, but my hunch is that their voices are not strong enough to be heard.

“Thus my stand for a stronger prophetic voice in this land where lamentations continue to echo through the coastal communities hit by the horrific storm surge, as well as the plains and uplands ravaged by Yolanda’s mighty winds that howled across these tragic islands… “I do not intend to minimize the importance of the challenge for the bishops and the clergy of these islands to rise up with a prophetic voice for, indeed, they, too, are afforded the rare chance to do a Jeremiah. But since I am a religious, I would rather write to my fellow religious. And since I have a message that the Major Superiors might want to hear, this letter of appeal is for them. It is very presumptuous of me to even draft this letter, but I am convinced that I need to have the audacity to just go ahead and write it…

“On 16 February—a few days from now—it will be the 100th day since Yolanda struck. But as one goes around the city and the adjacent coastal areas, one is confronted with the desperation affecting the people…

“The heroic efforts of the local church and a number of religious congregations have truly witnessed to God’s compassion among the survivors. The initiative of those who set up the outreach of religious and lay partners from Mindanao—coordinated by Balsa—was mainly through the efforts of religious, mainly women religious. But even as we commend them for their courageous efforts and quick responses, there is need for us to humbly accept that these efforts leave much to be desired in terms of long-term impact and sustainability.

“When I was a young lay church worker in the early days of martial rule, what attracted me to the religious life—which I eventually joined—was the witnessing of those who pioneered the ministry of presence among the poor, deprived and oppressed. That presence was made possible because of the collective efforts of the AMRSP as led by the icons of prophetic witnessing whose memory we keep in deep reverence until today—the likes of Sisters Christine Tan RGS and Mariani Dimaranan SFIC, and Fathers Benny Mayo SJ and Louie Hechanova CSsR and their many partners in AMRSP.

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Post-'Yolanda' trauma/tension releasing exercise

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

“Hurricanes destroy earthquakes shatter, war rips apart, economies collapse, businesses go bankrupt, people die. This is the way of the world. Human suffering is based on wanting to change the things that have happened and wanting to change people. When we understand that the only thing we can change is our response to people and the ways of the world, we can begin to find peace, we can be powerful people even in the midst of chaos and adversity.”

This can sum up the desiderata of Chris Balsley, an American corporate coach and Tension/Trauma Releasing Exercise (TRE) expert who, with his team of trainers, is in the Philippines for a month to help survivors of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

The team is giving free training to Filipinos so that TRE can reach more people whose trauma needs to be addressed. The training lasts for three days, followed by one to two days of practicum for those who will be dispatched to the field. TRE was brought to the country by Human Capital Development.


I participated in the last of the three days of Batch 1. I got to experience the entire menu and was with those who already had two “shaking” days. I, too, had my own shaking experience. More on this later.

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Sisters act: Coronel sisters in the limelight

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

Two sisters, Sheila Coronel and Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, broke into the news almost simultaneously last week while they were in opposite parts of the globe.




Miriam Corone-Ferrer: Wife, mother and professor. Sheila Coronel: "Super journalist," teacher and leader. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

New York-based Sheila, for being named dean of academic affairs of Columbia University’s School of Journalism. And Philippine-based Miriam, for being the lead negotiator for the Philippine government’s long-running peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that peaked with the signing of a framework agreement that could mean lasting peace and prosperity in Mindanao.

The news on Sheila was a burst of sunshine for her colleagues in the Philippines and media mavens who had seen her undisputed dent on Philippine investigative journalism. Meanwhile, University of the Philippines professor Miriam and the government peace panel (under the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process) were often in the news.

Sheila and Miriam, both in their 50s, are the first and second in the brood of six (they have four younger brothers) of the swashbuckling criminal lawyer, dean Antonio Coronel, and Dorotea Soto, an English teacher and entrepreneur. Dean Coronel died in 1993, and Dorotea several years later.
Sheila
Sheila A UP political science graduate (1979), Sheila has a master’s degree (with distinction) in political sociology from the London School of Economics.

Starting her reporting career at the Philippine Panorama, she later joined Manila Times, then Manila Chronicle while covering for The New York Times and London’s Guardian.

Sheila was cofounder (1989) and, for many years, the director of the groundbreaking Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. She has received many awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication (2003). She is author and editor of more than a dozen books, among them, “Coups, Cults and Cannibals” and “Pork and Other Perks: Corruption and Governance in the Philippines.”

The news about Sheila’s appointment, posted on Columbia U’s website, quoted dean Steve Coll thus: “Sheila is a super journalist, teacher and leader. Her deep commitment to investigative reporting, data science and global journalism makes her ideally positioned to advance the school’s most important priorities.” Columbia U gave her the Presidential Teaching Award in 2011.

Sheila joined the topnotch school in 2006 as director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of Professional Practice in Investigative Journalism.
Miriam
Miriam’s academic background includes her graduating cum laude from UP with a degree in philosophy (1981). She has a master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Kent at Canterbury. She is now in a University of Helsinki doctoral program in political science even while balancing her roles as wife, mother, professor, negotiator and peace advocate.

Miriam has been a government peace panel member since talks with the MILF restarted in 2010 under the present Aquino administration. Her academic career centers on peace studies, conflict resolution and transitional justice. She had served as leading convenor of Sulong Carhrihl, a network that promoted human rights. She was involved in the campaign to ban land mines.

She was a director of UP’s Program on Peace, Democratization and Human Rights, and also the Third World Studies Center. She penned books and articles on the peace process, civil society and regional autonomy. She was visiting professor in Asian universities.
In the news
In the news Sheila had been the better-known one because of her media work. But now Miriam is a familiar face in the news. “When Sheila became famous as a journalist,” Miriam says, “I didn’t really mind being referred to as Sheila’s sister or as the daughter of my father. Still, I got a kick from reading a news report about her deanship where she was referred to as my sister.”
Extrovert, introvert
Sheila and Miriam were born 18 months apart. While they were growing up they shared the same room and went to the same school (College of the Holy Spirit on Mendiola Street).

Miriam recalls: “I was more extrovert in grade school. I was active in sports and the student council. We both wrote for our school paper. Sheila was not the sporty type. She stayed in the room a lot and read novels. On one birthday our father gave her a boxful of books.”

Sheila remembers: “I was the quieter one. My sister was more robust, outgoing. We’d be wakened up early in the morning and driven all the way to Mendiola from Quezon City. Our arguments were interminable, often during those rides, because Iye (Miriam’s nickname) didn’t like to lose arguments and neither did I.

“Miriam went to Philippine Science High School while I stuck it out with the nuns, so the arguments in the car ended. For college, we both went to UP with a whole bunch of cousins and we were like one barkada.”

Miriam remembers her mother “telling us girls that she did not educate us to spend our lives in the kitchen, although my mother was a good cook, entrepreneur and literati herself.” Sheila recalls her mother saying that they were “too smart to be housewives,” too smart to remain so.
Activists
Says Sheila: “Papa made us believe that we could be anything we wanted to be. He was an alpha male, the center of the universe at home. He didn’t like to lose arguments, which became a problem when we were in UP and became activists, and he was defending military torturers and officers.

“Miriam and I were nearly arrested in a military roundup in 1982. You know the story. (A place this writer owned was raided by the military, sending several activists, this writer included, into hiding.) We had to lie low and have our hair curled. We hid with relatives in Pampanga and our farm in Tanay, with Miriam’s eldest son in tow. It was an important phase in our lives that we eventually outgrew.”

Miriam remembers: “After our father was asked to defend Gen. Fabian Ver in the Ninoy Aquino 1983 assassination case, he called for a family meeting. I was very involved in the underground movement then. Sheila was a journalist. She vehemently objected. But I understood. This was his game, he was a lawyer of infamous and famous criminals. In the same way that he allowed us to be, I could not ask him to refuse the case.”
Coronel’s daughters
Oh, the stories they tell about the strange characters they saw in their father’s law office, the photos of gruesome crimes in his files, how he would regale his children with the cases he handled.

Sheila has fond memories: “Papa was very generous, loving, funny. He drove us to our press work at the UP Collegian late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. He gave us lavish presents. Even when I was already out of college, he would still buy me shoes and dresses. How many fathers did that?”

Miriam: “Our father was proud of the good that he saw in each of us. He wrote us poems. We grew up in a liberal atmosphere with lots of books in the house. There was no censorship. We freely pursued our interests, attended parties, traveled with friends.”

Clearly, parental influence and the home atmosphere played a big part in their becoming. Sheila and Miriam were already pursuing careers when their parents separated.
Marriage, career
Miriam says, “I was able to pursue many things despite early marriage and children because I have a very supportive husband who takes care of our household.”

Sheila describes Miriam’s husband Anthony as “the most supportive husband I know. When Miriam was studying in the UK and I visited her, I overheard her telling him over the phone, ‘Don’t make me feel guilty. I am enjoying myself here.’”

Sheila on Miriam: “She is very focused, driven and tenacious. She will not let go. She is very strong and firm, more stubborn than I am. She has a mathematical mind. She has a very keen sense of right and wrong, is a strategic thinker willing to compromise for a larger goal.”

Miriam on Sheila: “She does rigorous work—very important in investigative journalism. She writes well, which makes the big difference. She is well-read and a speed reader. She is amiable and has a sense of humor. She got some of our father’s penchant for remembering jokes. But she can also get cranky when something distracts her from her work.”

Sheila can’t help crediting her mother for her success. “I had a mother who wanted me to succeed. She made sure I was comfortable when I was studying in London. She supported me in my early years as a journalist. When I walked out of newspapers—three in three years—and was jobless, I could always go home to Mama and ponder my next move without worrying about going hungry. She was my most critical reader. She helped take care of Miriam’s kids when she studied abroad.”

Sheila thinks being unmarried was also a key to her career success. “I was never saddled with domestic responsibilities and was able to focus on work.” She now has a partner in the person of Reginald Chua, executive editor at Reuters. “He is very supportive of what I do. We talk and argue about journalism all the time.”

Sheila says her move to the US was surprisingly painless. “I had an apartment waiting for me and the faculty and the community at Columbia were very welcoming. I had wonderful students who were patient with this stranger. They were eager to learn from me, and I from them.”
In touch
Sheila on her appointment as dean of academic affairs: “I am honored and delighted. We are at a period of uncertainty, as well as tremendous possibility, for both journalism and journalism education. It’s an exciting time to be a top-tier journalism school.”

Miriam speaking at the government peace panel-MILF talks: “We come here as skeptical and realistic as anyone else. But these dangers never stopped us from cumulatively achieving consensus and inching our way forward. Why should these stop us now from moving on to the next stage of our work for peaceful change and reforms?”

The Coronel sisters think they look quite alike, one often mistaken for the other. Miriam says. “We both love to read and write. The writing part is a trait that runs in the family, including my brothers.” Sheila and Miriam stay connected by e-mail and phone. Sheila comes home every summer without fail. “I spend a month chilling out with my siblings and the next generation of Coronels.”#

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From war brothels to cybersex?

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

Last year Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said the use of “comfort women” in World War II was “necessary” to keep battle-stressed soldiers in fighting form. His comments sparked outrage in 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 didn’t know that having sex slaves is a crime against humanity. At any time, in any place and circumstance.

A similar tempest made the news days ago when Katsuto Momii, Japan’s newly appointed head of public broadcasting station NHK, said military brothels during World War II was “common in any country at war.” And he said this in his first news conference as NHK chair. He might as well have stressed that these comfort women were not Japanese exported abroad to ease the Japanese soldiers’ aching groins but women and girls of the Asian countries Japan occupied and tried to subjugate with much cruelty—the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, China, etc.

Stoking old, unhealed wounds must be the expertise of some Japanese officials conceived during the war years. Momii, 70, was a babe crawling on his belly while his elders were skewering women and babies abroad.

The Associated Press also quoted Momii as saying that: “The comfort women system is considered wrong under today’s moral values. But the military comfort women system existed as a reality [during World War II].” A necessary reality? He then lashed at South Korea for continuing to demand compensation and for criticizing Japan, “as if Japan was the only one that forcibly drafted women into the system.”

As far as I know, only Japan’s disgusting use of comfort women (aka sex slaves) as part of its military boosting strategy has been condemned openly by no less than the victims themselves. Documents indeed showed that the sex abuses were not random or spur-of-the-moment but part of a deliberate effort to fortify soldiers and put them in best fighting form—through sex with unwilling victims.

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Cardinal-elect Quevedo: A 'God's commando'

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

CARITAS CONGAUDET veritati. Love rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). This is the episcopal motto of Cardinal-elect Orlando B. Quevedo. I had to use a magnifying lens to find it in his coat of arms shown on the Internet. One of the quadrants in the coat of arms has a cross and a crescent and another one has a Moro vinta. Very symbolic, I thought, of where the archbishop serves.

Soon to be “elevated” to the cardinalship, Quevedo heads the archdiocese of Cotabato which covers parts of several provinces in Mindanao. I put the word “elevated” inside quotation marks after I read what Pope Francis said about cardinals. Quevedo belongs to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The OMI has a strong foothold inMindanao with its Notre Dame schools, media presence and priests serving in varied apostolates.

In 1997, when I had to write a feature on the slain bishop of Jolo, Benjamin de Jesus, also an Oblate, I did some research in the OMI’s library in Quezon City and went home with books on its missionary work in the Philippines starting with the coming of the first American Oblates in Mindanao. Some of the accounts of the new arrivals in the late 1930 and early 1940s were straight out of a Wild West adventure book, some hilarious, some heart-pounding.

The OMI was founded in 1826 in Aix, France, by St. Eugene de Mazenod, a count who became a priest and worked among the poor. Some 6,000 Oblates now work in difficult missions in many parts of the world. They were the first missionaries “to brave the howling winds of the North Pole to reach the encampments of neglected Indians, Metis and Eskimos.” Pope Pius XI called them “specialists in most difficult missions.” For their daring, these hardy men who wore the sash and cross earned the name “God’s commandos.”

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Questions on the buried cadavers

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

Two months after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” struck, the hundreds of remaining unburied and unidentified cadavers are being rebagged and buried in mass graves after DNA samples and other identity marks have been taken. There remain many questions and criticisms on why it took so long for the bodies to be buried, and why survivors had to live with the stench of the decaying corpses for two months.

Assurances from health officials that corpses do not pose threats to health were not that reassuring, what with intermittent rains adding to the landscape’s somber look of decay. The smell of one decaying dead rat is bad enough, what more hundreds (it used to be thousands) of dead human beings? The survivors, traumatized enough, had to live with this.

The good news is that government agencies are trying to drive the last nails into the coffins, so to speak, though there are no coffins to speak of, only body bags that cannot seal in the smell of putrefaction. The DNA sampling and recording for purposes of identifying the remains in the future have not been described in detail, leaving me and many others wondering how the task of exhumation would proceed in a way satisfactory to the dead’s next of kin. That is, for their missing family members to be finally found beneath the mound and identified with precision.

Or is this all an exercise in futility, a way to make the bereaved feel a little better, a way to meet cultural expectations? That is, that the living will eventually get reunited with their loved ones’ remains so that they can give these proper burial in a place of their own choosing. This, even in the age of cremation when many who are still living are choosing not to be buried (when they’re dead, that is) but to have their ashes scattered to the four winds or merged with the ocean. Not to be kept in urns or cubicles but to be released to the cosmos.

Question: What can survivors in search of missing kin expect in the future? Will they be able to find the remains of their loved ones who are in the mass graves (if they are in the mass graves) and be told with absolute certainty that the remains in a particular body bag are what they are looking for? Are the body bags and their identification numbers impervious to rot, and how do these correspond to the DNA samples on the list? Were photos and thumbprints taken before the bodies decomposed?

The severity of the havoc wreaked by Yolanda was beyond compare that procedures conducted with swiftness, orderliness and precision in the immediate aftermath could not be expected. But now, late in the day, could something still be expected (in the future) in the identification department?

I’ve seen too many “CSI NY” and “CSI Miami” episodes on TV that might make me think identification of corpses and criminals through scientific means is so easy. But the Yolanda superepisode was one of a kind and the dead so numerous (6,000 plus) that it would be hard to meet all the survivors’ expectations as far as finding their dead is concerned.

How indeed will the process of exhumation and identification proceed in the future? Will there be a mass exhumation? Will searching relatives have to present their own DNA samples and spend for the exhumation and identification process? How do you find one body from among thousands buried together (not one on top of another, I suppose) in a mass grave?

According to reports, more than 1,000 bodies were recently buried in a mass grave in Barangay Suhi in Tacloban City, others will be buried at Holy Cross cemetery, and some 800 more are being processed.

I salute the forensic teams of the National Bureau of Investigation and the gravediggers who have been at this for weeks. Health Secretary Enrique Ona and Undersecretary Janet Garin have gone to see the processing of the dead for themselves.

But I really want to know the science part of this. I dread the day when relatives will demand an exhumation, identification and matching process, and the government cannot deliver. How exactly will this be done? Too early to ask?

But shouldn’t families with missing kin instead be prepared to accept that their loved ones, together with thousands of others, have been buried properly and need not be raked up once more, to let the dear departed lie peacefully in hollowed grounds where the living and generations to come can honor them collectively?

Swept to the sea or buried as unknowns, the dead do not care. It is the living who need to come to terms with the suddenness and fierceness of it all, with the reality that life as they knew it will not be the same again, but that life must go on. For as the psalmist said, “Joy comes in the morning.”

                                                                   * * *
Goodbye to Sr. Flor Maria Basa of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) who passed away last Monday at 92. I did a front-page piece on her yesterday. I wrote a series on her in 2012, at the height of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

This nun, who had quietly lived her religious vocation for more than 60 years, came out with guns blazing, so to speak, to shoot down what she believed was not the truth. She spoke truth to power. Though never summoned to the witness stand, her statements corroborated other findings of the impeachment court that eventually found Corona guilty.

She will be laid to rest tomorrow at the FMM burial grounds in Tagaytay, in that resting place on the grassy ridge with the splendorous view of Taal lake and volcano, in that hallowed place where mist turns to dew. #

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Basa, nun who backed kin vs Corona dies at 92

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

Sister Flor Maria Basa of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) who came forward in 2012 to support her niece Ana Basa’s allegations against impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona died on Monday night. She was 92.

A religious for 67 years, Basa died at the FMM retirement home in Gen. Mariano Alvarez town in Cavite. Burial is at the FMM cemetery in Tagaytay City on Jan. 10 after the 9 a.m. funeral services at the retirement home.

During the 2012 impeachment trial when the media was seeking her out, Basa was already having regular medical checkups for what doctors suspected to be colon cancer. But the nun was very clear-minded, articulate and full of humor. She refused surgery and extraordinary medical intervention for her ailment.

Basa had a lengthy interview with the Inquirer, which came out in a two-part special report by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo (May 5 and 6, 2012). A short version of the story is included in Doyo’s latest book “You Can’t Interview God: Church Women and Men in the News” (Anvil, 2013).

Basa was born in Sampaloc, Manila, on Dec. 6, 1921, to Jose Maria Basa and Rosario Guidote. She was one of the four Basa siblings. An older sister, Sister Concepcion, was also a Franciscan nun. Shortly after Flor Maria’s birth, the family moved to a house on Lepanto Street (not far from the controversial Basa-Guidote property that was the subject of arguments in the impeachment trial).

The nun’s grandfather, Jose Ma. Basa Sr., was a renowned Filipino patriot who, along with national hero Jose Rizal, fought Spanish rule. Many streets have been named after him.

Basa was thrust into the limelight because of her family ties to some protagonists during the trial of Corona, who is married to her niece Cristina. Because of the pronouncements she made to uphold a party in a family problem concerning inheritance that could have a bearing on the ongoing trial, the nun became fair game for the paparazzi.

Though never summoned to the witness stand, her pronouncements corroborated other findings of the impeachment court that eventually found Corona guilty.

This nun who had quietly lived her religious vocation for more than 60 years suddenly came out to shoot down what she believed was not the truth and “spoke truth to power.”—Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

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Tabang Visayas

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

First there was Tabang Mindanaw in the past decade or so when large areas in Mindanao suffered from armed conflicts and environmental disasters. These left thousands of families in need of not just relief and rehabilitation that would bring them back to their original state but something even better and concrete to look forward to. Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) or civil society groups (CSOs) linked arms with business, church groups, international organizations and government agencies not only to deliver material aid but also to kindle hopes for peace. I think of the selfless individuals I’ve met who tread the less-traveled paths in those parts.

Among the most affected then were marginalized indigenous communities (indigenous people or IP). I have seen for myself and written about the groundbreaking, continuing and remarkable work done by CSOs for these communities. But not to underestimate the local people’s participation to uplift themselves.

Among the amazing breakthroughs are special schools that continue to graduate batches of IP students (up to tertiary level) who are now serving their own communities and even beyond. Think of a Tiduray from Mindanao now doing technology work among the Mangyans of Mindoro. Ah, the vision and out-of-the-box quiet persistence of groups and young individuals! (I am again being invited to those parts to see for myself the great distance that has been covered.)

Now, there is Tabang Visayas.

Launched in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda”  (international name: “Haiyan”) that blew to smithereens [large parts of the Visayas], and some parts of Luzon, was Tabang Visayas which, from the briefing I got, is even more daunting than Tabang Mindanaw. Words to describe the kind and extent of the devastation and loss in human lives (more than 6,000 as of now) have run out.

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