Ben of the lumads

His search for meaning, his taking to the less-traveled road, and his encountering the light at last, among mostly forgotten people—these could only be straight out of a continuing divine plot that has yet to fully unravel. The experience thrills him, fills him with awe and thanksgiving.

Benjamin ``Ben’’ Abadiano, 41, is this year’s recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership. In electing Ben, the RM Award Foundation ``recognizes his steadfast commitment to indigenous Filipinos and their hopes for peace and better lives consonant with their distinctive tradition and hallowed ways of life.’’

I met Ben last year when I interviewed him for a front page feature. I had learned about him from Sr. Victricia Pascasio of the Holy Spirit Sisters whose work among the Alangan Mangyans Ben had helped expand.

Twice I had been among the Mangyans before Ben went there to stay, and I had seen what it was like. Now, I am told, things have changed for the better I wouldn’t recognize the place if I wandered into it.

Born in 1963, Ben was raised by his grandparents. The circumstances of his birth are stuff for primetime TV dramas but that is another story. Ben finished sociology in Cagayan de Oro’s Xavier University where a Tingguian anthropologist, Dr. Erlinda Burton, opened his eyes to the world of the lumads or indigenous peoples (IP).



Ben recalled the first time he spent three weeks with a Manobo community in Bukidnon where water was scarce. ``Every day I would be given isang Caltex (a liter) of water for my use’’ The Manobo fashioned for him a bed shaped like a coffin suspended in midair like a hammock. Ben was amazed at the lumads’ simplicity.

``When that was over,’’ Ben said, ``I went straight to the beach and soaked in the sea the whole day. I knew I had experienced a transition and I wanted to devote my life to the IP.’’

Ben headed for Mindoro to look up a former classmate working with the Mangyans and the Holy Spirit sisters who ran a school as well as livelihood and environmental projects at the edge of the forest. He stayed on for nine years. He asked for nothing except food and a roof over his head. He organized the youth and helped put up Tugdaan (which means seedbed), a training school where the Mangyans learned not only the three Rs but also how to tap into their native genius to improve their lives. Ben’s most avid supporter was Sr. Victricia, a veteran in the field.

Tugdaan is now a major hub in Paitan. There, Mangyans learn about livelihood projects. It is also where many of their indigenous produce are developed and tested.

Ben was about to get married when the religious call made itself felt again. The Jesuits who had earlier refused him entry were tracking him down. Ben had reached a crossroad. He wanted to give more. `` The thought made me shed tears of joy. I felt as if grace was raining down on me.’’

Ben said goodbye to Mindoro and to a sociologist who would have been his wife. By the time he left the Mangyans, Tugdaan was well on its way. He entered the novitiate, did philosophy at the Ateneo, even pronounced his vows as a Jesuit. Ordination to the priesthood was still far down the road.

Then something stirred inside Ben that told him he had to go back to his first love—the IP. Before his 30-day retreat was over, Ben had already discerned where God was leading him. He left the Jesuits to make a path of his own. He had nothing except dreams and a song in his heart.

``Perhaps I was really meant for community work,’’ Ben said. It was not coincidence that he ended up with the Assisi Development Foundation Inc. (ADFI) headed by Ambassador Howard Dee.

Ben is ADFI’s consultant for Tabang Mindanaw and program coordinator for peace building. He is also the founder and moving force behind Ilawan Center for Peace and Development.

But minus the titles and the institutions he represents, Ben is, by himself, a remarkable human being, Filipino, Christian. Organizer, inspirer, trainer, educator, troubleshooter, dreamer, doer. A man for others.

Ben was made in charge of the program for the IP and also coordinator of Tabang’s Integrated Return and Rehabilitation Program (IRRP). He was instrumental in turning 47 communities in Maguindanao, Cotabato and Lanao del Sur into ``sanctuaries of peace.’’ Tabang Mindanaw’s IRRP formulated a nine-stage peace-building process for war-torn Central Mindanao and its displaced communities.

Peace-building starts at the evacuation sites, explained Ben. ``We gather data, demographics. We meet with local leaders, datus, barangay and prayer leaders, tribal elders. The goal is to build trust. The evacuees must feel that efforts are sincere.’’

Ben is not one to rest in green pastures. The light must be shared, not hidden under a bushel. The Ilawan Center for Peace and Sustainable Development is one medium for that sharing of the light. Ilawan means holder of light. Explained Ben: ``We desire to be a light for others, especially the poor and the marginalized.’’

Ilawan started as a dream of friends doing mission and who had a great desire to serve. Small groups would gather, along with lay workers and missionaries, to share their life experiences. In the process, they found they had something in common--the desire to share and express love for Christ by working among the marginalized communities.’’

Religious and priests whose zeal is on ``low batt’’ should feel inspired and revived and by these young visionaries.

Ben said the love of his grandparents (who died when he was 13) stoked the passion in him. ``Where does that passion come from? From the feeling of gratefulness, of being blessed. You have to share your best.’’#

Woman, religion and spirituality

Every woman who cares about the future of the women of this world and other planets should read this book. So should every caring man. And the befuddled, benighted ones—may they stumble upon this book in the most unlikely climes, at the most unlikely times, may someone care enough to shove it into their path or gift them with it, beautifully wrapped and scented, so that they may look upon it with curiosity and awe, and having read it, be filled with enormous regret that could turn into tremendous resolve to change things for the better.

The good news is that ``Woman, Religion and Spirituality in Asia’’ (Anvil) by Sr. Mary John Mananzan OSB was launched last Sunday at the National Book Fair. Mananzan, president of St. Scholastica’s College for six years, was recently elected Prioress of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in the Philippines.

The better news is that there is no better time than now for this book to come out. It comes in the aftermath of the tempest caused by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter on women which caused women (hmm, like me) to answer back.

And the best news? The book is easy to read. Surprisingly simple but engrossing, I would say, coming as it does from a scholar and activist nun whose doctoral dissertation at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (where almost all the popes studied) was pompously titled ``The Language Game of Confessing One’s Belief: A Wittgensteinian-Austinian Approach to the Linguistic Analysis of Creedal Statements.’’ A journalist would write, tongue in cheek, ``Ways of Saying `I Believe’’’. But I digress.



As her latest opus shows, Mananzan has come a long way from there to here. No heavy exegetical discussions here. She also gives us a peek into her own evolution.

The role of religion in the socialization of women has fascinated Mananzan for a long time. What was the impact of institutional religions in Asia on women? And so she embarked on a research that led her to various places in Asia.

Mananzan delves into the world religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, and the non-world religions (indigenous, folk and new religions, Confucianism) as well. How have the scriptures and written works in these religions portrayed women?

But first, the author makes sure the reader understands the difference between religion/religiosity and spirituality. She also gives a historical perspective of the Asian feminist theology of liberation whose task is twofold--to deconstruct whatever is oppressive and to reconstruct whatever is liberating.

Having said that, she then walks the reader through the ancient and the contemporary. She gives the short history and basic teachings of each religion and offers concrete examples of how women have been regarded and treated/mistreated owing in part to scriptures and religious traditions. Which elements in these religions can be oppressive, which ones can be liberating?

Quite effective is Mananzan’s use of vignettes and portraits of goddesses and historical women of yore who are considered icons. So are the are her one-on-one interviews with contemporary women who are making breakthroughs in their respective religions now.

Women in Christianity making bold steps have their counterparts in other faiths. Mananzan has herself made ground-breaking moves in the women’s front—the Institute for Women’s Studies, Women Ecology and Wholeness Farm, the Women Crisis Center, to name a few.

The chapter on Christianity is the shortest. Maybe because a lot has been written on this? The chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam are fuller. For nervous Christians, here are some reassuring lines, if you don’t know this already. ``Amid the appalling oppressive elements in Christianity, there are liberating factors. The most liberating aspect of Christianity is Christ himself who went against the traditions and customs of his time to single out women in the fulfillment of his mission… In spite of the repressive elements in church history, some women rose to great heights…’’ Sadly, many church fathers forget.

The book presents excerpts from Hindu scriptures that are positive/ambivalent and blatantly misogynist (anti-woman). These must have contributed to Hindu society’s toleration of gruesome crimes (bride burning, dowry deaths) against women. The brief portrait of the Hindu goddess (Kali-Durga), an account on the life of poet-mystic (Mirabai), as well as the experiences of a victim and a Hindu feminist provide the reader varied woman images from this mystifying and most ancient religion.

Developments in Buddhism are, surprisingly, quite intriguing. The growing movement pushing for bikkhunis (ordained female monks, not nuns)is worth watching. There is, in Sri Lanka, a move to restore this. In Thailand, where it was never a practice, a couple of women got themselves ordained and caused a stir. To think that we associate Buddhism with serenity and pacifism.

``Any discussion of the status of women in Islam,’’ Mananzan warns, ``is fraught with the dangers of overgeneralization and oversimplification.’’ Do you know that pre-islamic women had no rights? Islam raised the status of women. Noted Muslim women scholars are now re-interpreting the Qur’an, the Hadith and other Muslim writings from the perspective of women.

Read about the cruel practice of female circumcision, ``honor deaths’’ (e.g., execution of a rape victim), injustice in unproven rape, to name a few. Celebrate the life of Aisha, Mohammed’s child-bride and favorite wife who later became one of the greatest scholars in Islamic history.

I have run out of space. I hope you get that book and read it.

Rep. Hontiveros takes on Cardinal Ratzinger

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had it coming.

The author of the Vatican’s ``Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World’’ has shown once again how the powerful patriarchy in the Catholic Church views women’s struggle for equality and emancipation. How is the how? With suspicion bordering on paranoia, that’s how. Ratzinger, famous for being an archconservative, should expect a fallout.

Part of the fallout comes from Rep. Anna Theresia ``Risa’’ Hontiveros-Baraquel, a first termer from the Akbayan Party who delivered her maiden privilege speech (``Feminism is Humanism’’) in congress last Tuesday. Hontiveros tackled Ratzinger’s heavy treatise that warned against the rise of antagonism between the sexes, woman power, and other imagined abominations.

I imagine the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I believe to be a thoroughly masculine feminist, befuddled by all this anti-feminist to-do in the Vatican. Jesus posed a counterculture and defended and upheld women so many times. I don’t know why many modern-day high priests could not do the same without being patronizing and suspicious. (Ha, and what would Jesus say about their wearing jewelry and princely raiment embroidered in gold?)

Ratzinger rants: ``Recent years have seen new approaches to women’s issues. A first tendency is to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism: women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person, which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the family.



``A second tendency emerges…In order to avoid the domination of one sex over the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary…According to this perspective, human nature in itself does not possess characteristics in an absolute manner: all persons can and ought to constitute themselves as they like, since they are free from every predetermination linked to their essential constitution. This perspective has many consequences. Above all it strengthens the idea that liberation of women entails criticism of Sacred Scripture.’’

Jesus H. Christ!

You can download the document from ZENIT News Agency, whose logo says, ``The World Seen From Rome.’’ Get a free online subscription if you want to eavesdrop on the Vatican.

Hontiveros now asks: ``In the spirit of sisterly correction, I ask why, in the latter years of a Pope who has meant so much to us in many of humanity’s struggles for democratization, social justice and a humanist culture and ecological healing, among others, the Vatican has seen fit to reaffirm its earlier, painful marginalization of the feminist movement…’’

Feminism, Hontiveros argues, is precisely a worldview that celebrates the feminine principle alongside the masculine in all of life and upholds the dignity, rights and responsibilities of women in that context. Again, she asks: ``Are these not positive energies that can propel the authentic advancement of women? Does the Cardinal not recognize women and feminist capacities for discernment and self-criticism in these matters?’’

Obviously not. While I was writing this piece, I entertained this thought: What might people like Ratzinger think when they read Mary’s Magnificat? Mary’s glorious words I have made the anthem of my life.

On the ``antagonism’’ issue, Hontiveros says: ``The adversity is precisely rooted in and exacerbated by these very conditions of subordination in our innermost selves and our most intimate relationships up to our societal institutions. How can we free ourselves if we did not recognize this truth? We seek, not another power over others, but power within ourselves and with others.’’

Ratzinger (surprise!) concedes somewhat: ``It is women, in the end, who even in very desperate situations, as attested by history past and present, possess a singular capacity to persevere in adversity, to keep life going even in extreme situations, to hold tenaciously to the future, and finally to remember with tears the value of every human life. Although motherhood is a key element of women’s identity, this does not mean that women should be considered from the sole perspective of physical procreation.’’

For Hontiveros, the most ``startling’’ part of Ratzinger’s thesis was the one about the liberation of women and criticism of Sacred Scripture and his saying that ``this tendency would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form.’’ There it is. It would be so Freudian, if it weren’t so Ratzinger.

Says Hontiveros: ``No feminist debates the fact that Jesus was born a man. Instead, we Catholic feminists cherish Jesus Christ as a feminist man and a sign of the feminine principle of God.’’

What do you make of a canonized saint (St. John Damascene) who said: ``Woman is a sick she ass…a hideous tapeworm, the advance post of hell’’? An Asian theologian I once interviewed remarked that such words (and surely, Ratzinger’s too) were ``evidence of deep mysogynist contempt and fear of women.’’

Mody with the smiling soul

She did not paint with her mouth or strum the guitar with her feet. She did not write verses or propound mathematical theories. She was no savant, but she was no sorry saint either. She had no spectacular talent or stunning achievements to speak of that could make her a celebrity worth all the fuss.

What she had were syringomyelia—and her immense capacity to take in life and be joyful. And to infect others with her joie de vivre. And to draw people to herself. And to be drawn to others.

Her story is worth retelling, my former editor at the Sunday Inquirer Magazine said to me the other day. I told her that Cecilia ``Mody’’ Chuidian Jurado, whom I had written about in 1991, passed away last Tuesday morning after a bout with respiratory illness. Mody’s body was cremated immediately. She was 46.

Mody had been bedridden, wheelchair-bound for 37 years. Only her head could move normally. And except for her upper limbs that could make slight, difficult movements, the rest of her was practically immobile. Mody was a quadriplegic. What Mody could not do for herself, others had to do for her.

Mody had been that way since she was nine years old. She was stricken with syringomyelia at that age when girls romped about and beat boys their age at their own game. One day all that energy came to a sudden stop. After four months in the hospital, Mody was brought home, never to move freely again and to start life anew.

Syringomyelia is a blister in the spinal cord that results in a chronic and progressive condition associated with sensory disturbances, muscle atrophy and spasticity.



The Jurado home in Magallanes Village had to undergo renovation so that Mody’s room on the ground floor could have a good view of everything that went on. Mody continued her studies at St. Scholastica’s College through a home study program and finished grade school and high school. She could have earned a college diploma but the Education Department at that time had requirements that a quadriplegic could not fulfill. Mody’s mentors encouraged her to keep on learning on her own. Mody read and listened to tapes and opened herself to the world.

Mody was the third of the five children of retired Air Force General Augusto Jurado and Nena Chuidian. She had two older half-sisters, her father’s children by his first wife who was killed by the Japanese during World War II.

``Mama said I’m helping God carry the cross,’’ Mody stated without a tinge of religious sentimentality. She was completely given to her condition. When I asked her what she would have wanted to do with her life had she been mobile, she said, ``A doctor in the missions.’’

Mody’s aunt, Sr. Consuelo Chuidian, a Good Shepherd nun, was one of the human rights workers who perished in a sea mishap off Mindanao in 1984. Her aunt’s photo hung beside Mody’s bed.

Mody was a study in wholeness and oneness with the world. The fact that she was no celebrity made those qualities shine through. She was no saint, no heroine, she would laugh. She was like most everyone—ordinary. Could that have been the reason many people were drawn to her?

People would come to her with their problems. She listened, gave counsel. Her smooth voice and good diction were some of her worldly assets. She had a keen sense of humor, was even self-deprecating at times, not hiding the weaker side of her. She could be lazy, she would say.

Mody could run the house even from her bed. She supervised the househelp, planned the marketing and the menu. She taught the househelp how to cook. ``Utos lang ng utos,’’ she chuckled. She also liked going to the mall and, when she was younger, to pop concerts with her friends.

Mody could use computer and do email with one slightly moving finger. A cordless phone was always with her. That Mody’s spastic hands could move at all was due to physical therapy. She could write, even do cross stitch ever so slowly. There was sensation in her entire body but she could not move. Someone had to brush her teeth and clean her up.

In 1991, Mody had breast cancer and underwent radical mastectomy and chemotherapy. She didn’t bother to wear a wig when her hair fell off. Mody survived cancer.

Friends who came to visit Mody all these years were not visiting a sick person. Her best friend and neighbor Florian Nuval-Nequinto would come around often for a chat, taking along her baby to roll on and wet Mody’s bed. The two were best friends since they were kids.

Her father (who died a few years ago) said they made sure Mody did not turn out spoiled. ``If we gave in to her every whim,’’ her mother said, ``she could have ended miserable.’’ She thought Mody was really very special. ``I think the word for her is valiant.’’

Mody was never sore at anyone, God included, for her condition and the finality of it. ``I didn’t think it was going to be temporary,’’ she said then. ``You take what God gives you, do the best you can, be happy. I think I live a pretty good life. I am relatively healthy, I have lots of friends. I have a nice family. I get sad but not depressed.’’ Sad about what? ``Seeing other people’s hardships, their poverty, their suffering--physical, mental.

``We have to make the most out of life, be the best. Don’t worry. This does not mean we should not plan. But we have to have faith in the Lord.’’

I spoke with Mody a few months ago before her health deteriorated. She later emailed me about the small reading project she and her friends had put up for poor kids in their barangay.

Mody, you stood out in a special way, among the hundreds of people (good, bad, wonderful, obnoxious)I had written about these past many years. Goodbye, and thank you for your quiet inspiration.