Nuns, bishop in the casino

What were they doing there? How did they get there? Who brought them there? Why were they there? What did they think their presence there would mean? Are they a new breed?

These were some of the questions asked by those who saw, on television, nuns trying out what looked like slot machines in the casino at the “Las Vegas”-to-be strip along Manila Bay.

Also present was Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias who gave the occasion an ecclesiastical feel.

Even the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) didn’t quite know how to react, but did react anyway by saying, through its spokesman Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, that the CBCP was not going to do anything, by way of censure perhaps, in relation to the presence of one its members in a gambling setting. Quitorio however did say that it was something the CBCP did not approve of.

Individual bishops are heads of their own ecclesiastical territories and are independent of the CBCP. They are accountable only to the Pope and their own constituencies. The most a bishop might get from his fellow bishops would be fraternal reminders. Individual bishops do not take orders from the CBCP, except perhaps when, as members, they must take heed and act as a collegial body.

And what about the nuns? Although most, if not all, heads of religious congregations in the country are members of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (for women and men), these congregations are independent of the AMRSP and don’t need the AMRSP’s yes or no.



Now, I don’t know if the nuns (I think they’re called Servants of the Eucharist) who went to the casino had asked the approval of their Provincial Superior (their head in the country) or only of the head of their convent for this extraordinary activity. But that is a private, congregational matter.

What matters now is how these nuns’ presence was interpreted and how they are now perceived by the public. Several seconds on television could say a lot. Would they have a chance to explain?

Their joyful presence in the gambling milieu could be interpreted as approval of the culture of gambling, and it does not matter that the milieu is mainly for tourists and Filipinos with a lot of extra money.

And how might they be perceived? The kindest thing I heard was that these nuns were perhaps naïve. And naïve, translated in Filipino, does not sound kind at all.

In this day and age when nuns, the Filipino variety in particular, continue to blaze trails in the church and society, the word naïve cannot be used as a sweeping generalization to describe Filipino nuns.

During the early part of the martial-law years, it was the religious, the nuns among them, who were in the forefront. Not the mitered and sceptered members of the hierarchy some of whom preferred to first try out the so-called “critical collaboration” mode. In contrast, many nuns strode into the wilderness right away to search for the lost and the lifeless and give strength to those who feared for their lives. That was their defining moment and they surely now have a place in the nation’s history.

So, do we now make a stinging condemnation of some church persons’ subtle approval of casinos through their presence? Maybe a not-so-gentle reminder would do, a reminder urging them to be in the habit of using the brain, the heart, the gut. That already says a lot. To say more than that would be to presume they are stupid. And they are not.

As the Benedictine nun who conducted our short and sweet Lenten recollection two days ago said, “Use your tantya-meter.”

In 1996, the CBCP came out with a statement on the proposed legalization of jueteng. It did not condemn gambling per se but judged gambling on the basis of its effects on people, even as it acknowledged the positive value of wholesome recreation done in moderation.

In 2000, Fr. Luis Hechanova, CSSR wrote in the Inquirer an essay on gambling as a dilemma for both the church and the state. (This was one of his essays in the book “Church, Politics and Transformation” that his friends published after he died in 2001.)

There are three aspects associated with gambling that influence its morality. These are recreation, addiction and excess.

Of gambling as recreation. “Catholic moral theology acknowledges the principle that the Good Lord has given human beings the opportunity of enjoying with moderation the little pleasures that accompany a normal human life. Thus, used with moderation, a game of cards or mahjong may be morally acceptable activities of persons and contribute to their relaxation and well-being.”

I know of a handful of senior nuns from different places who come together once every few months to play canasta. No bets of course, just laughter and updates on their joys and joints.

Gambling as addiction:“Unfortunately, many forms of gambling tend to be addictive. That is, people get hooked on excess. What is okay for some people as a form of recreation may not be good for those who get addicted and cannot stop.”

As excess: “Certain forms of gambling involve not only thousands but millions of pesos. High stake mahjong (was) played in the presidential yacht… Not all pragmatic reasons are acceptable. They must be used, not primarily for some benefit to government or charitable institutions just for the sake of raising funds, but for the common good, especially in favor of the poor, as is done in most civilized countries of the world.”

Even if, for the sake of argument, casino earnings went to some of Mother Teresa’s charities, I doubt if the saintly nun would like to be caught on TV trying out the slot machines.

Heart in two places

MANILA, Philippines -- “When we were asked to stand up, raise our right hand, and pledge to ‘renounce’ our loyalties to our old country, I felt a giant lump in my throat and I had to struggle not to cry. By the time they sang the national anthem, they had already lost me.”

That paragraph, though emotionally charged, sounds prosaic when compared with the rest of the essays in Gemma Nemenzo’s gem of a book, “Heart in Two Places: An Immigrant’s Journey” (Anvil). The moment she describes is a watershed moment for most Filipinos who have left their homeland to strike it out in the U.S. of A. But its impact and significance for a variety of Filipinos could be as varied as the Filipinos themselves and their reasons for living there.

Gemma writes about that pledging experience in her first essay aptly titled “Citizen Cain” (double entendre there), one of the 53 essays in her book.



A little backgrounder: Gemma is one of the Women Writers in Media Now (WOMEN), a bold group we formed in the early 1980s to fight the military’s strong-arm tactics against women in media. She was a freelance writer for print and a scriptwriter for TV’s “Batibot.” Today, we’re still the same clutch of irreverent women meeting regularly, and Gemma’s book launching was another chance to laugh, eat, reminisce and tell stories. Our sisterhood has survived revolutions, coups, marital breakups, change of governments, jobs, homes and citizenships.

Among us, it was Gemma who bravely took on the distant horizon. 1988 it was, after her marriage ended. With three children (aged 10, 8 and 9 months) in tow, she forged ahead to strike out anew in San Francisco.
That last sentence begs for a “never to return” cliché ending, but that’s not the case with Gemma. She has come home again and again. And when one reads “Heart in Two Places,” one realizes that she has not really left. She left her heart in the Philippines. She also has a heart beating to the beat of San Francisco which she calls home … at least for now.

The 53 essays are grouped into six categories--“Assimilation Angst,” “The Mommy Track,” “Friends and Lovers,” “The Philippines is in the Heart,” “Middle-Age Spread,” and “Politics is Personal.” The engaging, heart-tugging pieces (reminiscences, reflections, ruminations and humor) were published in Filipinas, the only monthly glossy magazine for the Filipino-American community circulated in all US states. Gemma is managing editor and columnist of Filipinas, which has been around for about 15 years now.

The categories suggest how Immigrant Gemma journeyed from here to there, through a landscape that is both familiar and strange, starting off with loads of the homeland in her heart, in her mind, on her back. Who was she, where was she, why was she … in this journey?

Gemma gives a voice and face to an immigrant’s painful dilemmas and exhilarating discoveries. She speaks for those who may not have the gift of words. Those who are not immigrants will find pearls of truth about themselves, their relationships, their own view of the world.

Gemma writes as a keen observer of what’s happening around her and, more importantly, inside her. She writes not as a dilettante but as one deeply engaged. Her style -- simple, conversational and yet profound -- is so down-home, with just the right "timpla" [blend], like the hometown flavors she craves for.

But the great surprise is the foreword by her headstrong daughter Jaja Nemenzo Almendral, now all grown up, who describes her internal journey with her mother. My mother, my self. “Her words were mirrors from which I could see life through her eyes, and the view, rather than staring off into the distance and over our shoulders, was actually looking at us.” A wow piece, if you ask me. Haunting.

But Gemma should take us herself through her own journey.

In “Citizen Cain” she writes: “I held Maia’s hand tight as we pushed our way through the crowd. ‘That was so exciting, Mama!’ Maia enthused. She was already planning her presentation in class the next day on how her Mama became an American.

“At the restaurant where we celebrated, I gulped down the iced tea, hoping that the constriction in my throat would go away. It didn’t, but my emotions were no longer as raw. Nothing will change, this is just a piece of paper.”

From “love, Patience and Renewal”: “When Maia was nine months old (Carlo was 10 and Jaja, 8), we left the country to start life anew in a foreign land. It was a move that sprung not just from failure but more so from defiance. The odds were against us: a single mother and three small children didn’t stand much of a chance if you believe the statistics. True enough, it had not been easy but we have steered our way out of the fog. And in so doing, I was able to give back to my children what they have taught me: love, patience and renewal in exchange for strength and endurance.”

From “The Big Night”: “What’s a Filipino mother to do when her upbringing and experience clash with the prevailing mores of America in the nineties? In addition to my anxiety over my daughter’s safety and the quality of my parenting, I was struggling with my own immaturity. As a mother, I was concerned about her date’s driving. But as a post-adolescent forty-five-year-old, I wondered if he was cute.”

From “May, Come She Will”: “Yet when May comes around, I always find myself looking back with fondness to the fiestas in our home town, and the other home towns I’ve been to, knowing deep in my heart that when the time comes for me to embrace a quiet life, those are the places I will return to and finally call my home.”

MDGs, FTAs

Alphabet soup, anyone? The letters are swimming in my head like letters in a bowl of alphabet soup heaving with dollops of jargon. One moment I know what a bunch of letters means, the next moment I find myself asking what SIA is. I bet, you also do not know. SIA stands for sustainability impact assessment. Do FTA and EPA mean the same? Are we ever an MFN? What happened to the WTO?

And then there are the kilometric words. Trade liberalization, globalization, neo-liberalism, multilateral, bilateral, developmental, etc. Journalists hate long words. Why say less-fortunate when you simply mean the poor? But I will concede to the economists’ “below poverty line” although I can only picture a line, not the face of destitution, hunger or penury.

These thoughts were swirling in my head while attending two recent two seminars meant to help journalists understand what is going on in this world, this country in particular.

The first one was on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which was exclusively for journalists and sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). For this one, the only way to get journalists to stay put was to fly them to some island. And so we were happily marooned in the island of Panglao in Bohol with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and SocialWatch (an activist NGO), to help with the A to Z of the MDGs. How to critically analyze the progress reports? How/where to find MDG-related stories?



The second meeting was of civil society organizations (CSOs) and academics who have been constantly monitoring, studying and objecting to the proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (EU-Asean FTA). I had been with them at the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) in Helsinki where a Pandora’s Box of FTA and neo-liberalism ills was opened for all to dissect and vivisect.

A little primer here. The UN’s MDGs have been around since the 1990s and your barangay captain should know them by heart. With 2015 as target year, all the 189 UN member states have pledged to: 1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2. achieve universal primary education, 3. promote gender equality and empower women, 4. reduce child mortality by two-thirds, 5. improve maternal health by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio, 6. combat and reverse the incidence and spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, 7. ensure environmental sustainability, 8. develop a global partnership for development.

Goals 1 to 7, we were told, were most urgent and must be dealt with on the ground. Goal 8 is kinda iffy, less difficult to track and quantify, something best addressed by governments of developed countries. But on second look, Goal 8 has a lot to do with Goals 1 to 7. In our pocket MDG primer, it is in fact the one with the longest explanation.

Part of it says: “Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory…address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports, enhanced debt-relief for heavily indebted poor countries, cancellation of official bilateral debt…provide access to affordable essential drugs…make available the benefits of new technologies…”

Here the EU-Asean FTA could be put in context. The two meetings that I attended now meet. The goals of one and the issues of the other must now converge. CSOs from Asean and Europe are concerned about the proposed EU-Asean FTA that would be concluded within the next two years. The CSOs are demanding an SIA (remember?) before negotiations.

They cite the EU-Mexico agreement that resulted in Mexico’s doubling trade deficit. And contrary to the predicted benefits to labor, the agreement resulted in rising unemployment, temporary employment contracts, below-standard wages and no social security. While foreign investments have increased, this has resulted mainly in foreign takeovers of domestic industries, without generating additional employment or increases in wages.

The EU now appears to be pushing ahead with similar FTAs in other regions regardless of the consequences, the CSOs warn. The EU, they add, seems to be promoting anti-development policies with its push to incorporate the controversial issues already rejected at the Word Trade Organization (WTO) by Asean members.

Others issues that Philippine negotiators, legislators and executive officials should be aware of:

• the liberalization of services at a WTO-plus level, given the dominance of EU service companies, will tend to out-compete Asean service providers;
• limitations for national governments to regulate in the public interest will jeopardize access to essential services, and have far-reaching implications for the poor;
• EU requirements that Asean substantially lower its tariffs will result in a significant loss of revenue to developing countries which can not easily raise similar funds from other taxation sources;
• the EU’s high priority on access to raw materials will seriously undermine Asean’s sovereignty over their natural resources, including restrictions on exports, investment and intellectual property rights;
• the EU will push for market access commitments with regard to government procurement;
• intellectual property protection is already reducing access to affordable medicine and education in developing countries.

After the alphabet soup with dollops of jargon, I need to go out there and find/give the issues a human face.

Hildegard, woman power

“Hail, O greenest branch…(O viridissima virga…)/ When the time came/ that you blossomed in your branches/ hail, hail was (the word) to you! For the warmth of the sun distilled in you/ a fragrance like balsam./ For in you blossomed the beautiful/ flower that gave fragrance/ to all the spices/ which had been dry/ And they all appeared in all verdure…”

Today is Women’s Day and this month is Women’s Month. Greetings, dear sisters!

It behooves us to learn from great women who lived many centuries removed from our era, women who made a dent in their milieu through their daring and groundbreaking work. Voices crying in the wilderness, prophets in their time, women of uncommon courage and wisdom.

Hildegard of Bingen was one such woman. And those opening lines are hers.

On March 5, St. Scholastica’s College gave out the first Hildegard Awards for Women in Media and Communication. The awardees were QTV Channel 11 for women-centered programming; Feny de los Angeles Bautista, producer of “Batibot”, for her advocacy of child-friendly television; Nora C. Quebral, “mother of development communication in the world”, for communication education; and Genoveva “Lola Bebang” Edroza-Matute, for her pioneering work as a feminist scriptwriter during radio’s golden age.

These trailblazers in the field of communication each received an Inay-aruga trophy sculptured by Inday Cadapan.



And who is Hildegard?

Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a canonized Catholic saint, was a Benedictine abbess, preacher, writer, musician, mystic, scholar, scientist, environmentalist, healer. She was also a communicator of wisdom and knowledge.

Those of us who were educated at the Benedictine-run St. Scho (which just turned 100) knew her only as one of the great Benedictine saints but we didn’t know much about her life and work. (Now we do and hail her.)

We knew St. Hildegard then as the building up front, the most imposing structure in the campus, done in Beaux Art and Romanesque style, with intricate arches, huge columns and a grand social hall. On the front wall of the building are Saints Hildegard and Scholastica’s images in bas-relief. (And because I opened my mouth, the bas-reliefs recently got a new coat of paint.)

With the rise of the women’s movement, Hildegard is back to her future, so to speak. Her life is being celebrated. Her written works and music are being studied.

Hildegard was 42 when she began to have visions that she recorded as “illuminations”. I have the book “Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen” (with commentary by Matthew Fox, author of many books, priest and controversial advocate of creation spirituality). Of Hildegard, Fox had said many times, “If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen.”
Fox dedicates the book “to my sister Hildegard, and all her sisters, past, present and to come, in a hope that their wisdom will cease to be repressed, ridiculed, forgotten and otherwise excluded from church, society and culture, so that the earth might be blessed and mutuality might be the law of the land.”

In the book, Hildegard is described as an extraordinary woman who lived in the Rhineland valley during most of the 12th century. She was the abbess of a large and prosperous Benedictine abbey. She was a prominent preacher, doctor, scientist, artist, poet and composer. She had written nine books on theology, medicine, science and physiology. Today she would be considered an eco-feminist.

Wrote Bernard W. Scholz in “The American Benedictine Review”: “She castigated a pope for his timidity and an emperor for moral blindness. She taught scholars and preached to clergy and laity as no woman before her had ever done…She claimed that now woman rather than man—obviously Hildegard herself—was to do God’s work. It is difficult not to see her visionary experience and activism, as well as her claim for the mission of woman in a male-dominated age, a gesture of protest, the reaction of an intelligent and energetic woman who chafed under the restraints imposed on women by the culture in which she lived.”

For almost 800 years Hildegard was virtually unknown but in the 1980s she began to emerge and interest in and awareness of her significance began to grow. Some years ago I was able to find in a local music store a recording of Hildegard’s songs (“Vision”) with a booklet of lyrics and on what her music is about. I once heard one of the songs used as background in a stage production.

Of her own music, Hildegard said: “These watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.”

But it is in “Illuminations” that one gets a glimpse of Hildegard’s “greening power”. (She coined the word viriditas.) She was first to view the universe as a cosmic egg. She offered a scintillating insight into the cosmos and its symphonic beauty. I couldn’t help thinking, Hildegard was eight centuries ahead of Teilhard de Chardin.

Hildegard sings to us even today, and these lines from her could very well be for her 21st-century sisters:
O life-giving greenness of God’s hand,/ with which he has planted an orchard,/ You rise resplendent into the highest heavens,/ like a towering pillar./ You are glorious in God’s work…”

She hears God speaking to her. “I am the breeze that nurtures all things green./ I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits./ I am the rain coming from the dew/ that causes the grasses to laugh/ with the joy of life.”