Healing phenomenon

Is the Philippines now gearing up to be a Christian spiritual pilgrimage site in Asia? Are the Filipinos spiritually ready for this? Or could we still be described as practicing split-level Christianity?

The media coverage of Fr. Fernando Suarez’s healing activities in many places in Metro Manila and the provinces has been quite sustained since he arrived last December. The number of people that flock to the healing Masses has grown exponentially because of the media coverage and one could see from the news reports that working the crowd has become increasingly difficult for the healing priest. The sick poor are crying out for the priest’s attention. They flock to the healing venues, arriving there way ahead of time to wait, hoping they would have their turn to be face to face with the priest and be embraced, prayed over and miraculously healed.

I interviewed Fr. Suarez last Dec. 23 and came out with a Dec. 31 front page feature story on his life and work (“Filipino healing priest does so ‘many miracles like in Bible’”). When I checked the Inquirer website early in the afternoon of that day, I found my article with an icon on it which said “Most Read” article. I wish I knew how many hits it got. You can access the article at www.inquirer.net.

Two weeks later, thousands flocked to the 40-hour vigil at Montemaria in the outskirts of Batangas City where a Marian shrine is to be built. The heavy downpour did not deter the crowd from waiting for the 40-ish Fr. Suarez who also had to brave the mud and rain to get to the site overlooking the sea. Manila archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Lipa archbishop Ramon Arguelles graced the occasion and celebrated Mass there.



I visited Montemaria on Jan. 9, three days before the vigil, and I can say that the place is indeed special. It has a breathtaking view of the sea and the islands between Batangas and Mindoro. That portion of the sea you behold when you stand on the peak is known to be one of world’s richest in marine biodiversity. I was there at the time of the afternoon when the sea and the horizon exhibited a silvery sheen and a stillness that suggested that all’s well with the world. The knoll I was standing on could be holy ground.

Fr. Suarez is the first to stress that he is not the one who heals. It is God. He is only a channel.

The crowd continues to surge around Fr. Suarez but with this phenomenon are some issues that need to be addressed. I can mention at least two: turfing and the creeping in of something that might be misconstrued or misunderstood as commercialism.

Already, Bishop Jose Oliveros of the diocese of Malolos has complained that Fr. Suarez’s healing activities, at least in his diocese, were conducted without his permission. The Church’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith requires that the local bishop’s permission be sought for church-related activities. Fr. Suarez does not belong to the Malolos diocese. He is a member of the Canada-based religious congregation called Companions of the Cross. (The congregation will soon set up a foundation here.)

Fr. Suarez had told me that he never went to a place unless he was invited. The parish priests that invite him over are therefore expected to clear things with their bishops. Do bishops have to know everything that goes on in a parish? But I understand that a visit from Fr. Suarez is no ordinary one and entails logistics and crowd control. Better be safe than sorry.

The other issue is on the material. Marian pilgrimage sites Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje are not spared being touched by commercialism. There are always entrepreneurs that would try to draw big bucks even from places of worship where crowds gather.

In the case of the Mary Mother of the Poor Foundation which Fr. Suarez heads and which is behind the building of the Montemaria shrine (supposed to be finished in September this year) there is indeed a need to raise funds. Montemaria (Matuko Point) in Batangas City will become the center of Fr. Suarez’s healing ministry and other spiritual activities. Set on a hill on 20 hectares of land, the center of the Oratory of the Blessed Virgin will have chapels, prayer gardens, Stations of the Cross, retreat houses, campsites, lodging houses, a center for the poor and even a replica of Mary’s house in Ephesus. The place is meant to draw pilgrims from here and abroad who want to renew their faith. The centerpiece is the 33-story-high statue of Mary Mother of the Poor.

How the money is being raised or collected is something that the foundation has to be careful about. Do healing Mass collections in parishes go to the Montemaria project? Should there be sale of items (such as rosaries) to raise funds and how much? Who are overseeing these activities? The well-meaning and hard-working organizers around Fr. Suarez should be extra, extra careful when dealing with the financial aspect in order to avoid misperceptions.

There are those who worry that the purity and simplicity of this healing ministry could get compromised when the material aspect start creeping in.

Fr. Suarez reaches out to both the poor and the rich and it is quite clear the teeming poor are the first in his agenda. There should be no cause for anyone to doubt this. I repeat—there should be no cause for anyone to doubt this.

Fr. Suarez leaves for his Canada base in the second week of February and will proceed to many places in this world to minister to the sick and infirm. It’s time for a break from the Philippine scene. He will be back.

In Agdangan, Quezon, the 12-story Luminous Cross of Grace Sanctuary has risen but still needs doming. The Stations of Cross are being finished in time for Holy Week.

Ordinary Filipinos, extraordinary difference

A plug: Tomorrow, if you have the chance, go to the launching of the book “Profiles Encourage: Ordinary Filipinos Making an Extraordinary Difference” at 5 p.m. at the PowerBooks in Greenbelt 4 in Makati.

It’s a small book with a big heart and it features 11 “ordinary” Filipinos (nine individuals and a couple) who made a difference in their little corner of the world and tells about how this difference created ripples that reached and touched the lives of many. It is also about quiet heroism and courage, doing what needed to be done despite the odds. And yes, despite the age, the young age, of some of them.

The featured ordinary Filipinos are James Aristotle Alip (“A Small Loan that has Gone a Gong Way”), Al Asuncion (“Champion, Mentor, Friend”), Josette Biyo (“A Planetary Journey in Cell Stages”), John Burtkenley Ong (“A Man for Others), India and Javier Legaspi (“Weaving Heritage and Hope”), Jika David (“Breathing Life into Dreams”), CP David (“Paradox, Friend, and Builder of Dreams”), Nereus Acosta (“Making Sense Out of Making a Difference”), Onofre Pagsanghan (“A Lesson in Life, Passion, and Hope”) and Milwida “Nene” Guevarra (“The Power of Example”).

I read the book in one sitting. As diverse as the stories of these individuals are, one thing struck me: each one of them is a teacher, a teacher of life. And while not all of them do or did stints in the classroom, each one was able to teach and stoke fires the way only great teachers could. Because they shared the essence of their lives.



Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s words are aptly quoted in the introductory page. “The world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease…Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change…”

The book is dedicated to the late Raul S. Roco who had once asked: “What is it in the DNA of a young boy from Bulacan that tells us the Filipino is worth dying for?” He was referring to a lad who saved lives during a disaster and in the end had to give up his own.

The 10 stories tell us that the Filipino is also worth living for.

Alip set up a mocrofinance project that would “help the poor help themselves.” He scoured the horizon for sources of microloans and set up the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD). He wanted to give hope to a sector in society that is often overlooked.

Asuncion was already a retired boxer when he found his calling to become a mentor and friend to boys who were growing up to be men. His story is told by the accomplished, successful men whom he had mentored during their boyhood, men whose character he had helped mold.

Jesuit-educated Ong lived among the Mangyans and helped them with their ancestral domain claims. A hydro-geologist, Ong also helped the Mangyans find water sources. But he was not there as a technical man, he was there to teach and also to learn “to love and to serve.”

Couple India and Javier Legaspi brought back to life a people’s fine craft of weaving and made the world notice. This not only gave communities livelihood, this restored the people’s confidence and pride in their heritage.

And there is Josette Biyo, science teacher par excellence, after whom a planet has been named, the first Asian teacher to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award.

Humbled by the overwhelming love, compassion and sacrifice of Christ, Jika David realized the best way to show her gratitude and appreciation for what God had given her was to be a servant herself. She left her corporate job and joined the Jesuit Volunteers Program and taught in Palawan. She later formed the DORM (Deepening Our Rural Minds) Fund to help rural kids have access to good education.

There’s more. Get the book.

“Profiles Encourage” (Anvil, Anna P. Hidalgo and Alejandra Otamendi, eds.) is a project of the pagbabago@pilipinas Foundation, a cultural-social movement founded in 2002 for the radical transformation of Philippine society. The book is easy reading but I wish the pieces were more evenly written and edited. Some parts are rather choppy. Still the project is a step in the right direction. There should be more of this for the youth.

In this age of dazzling stars and upstarts being constantly hoisted up in the media firmament as idols, there is a need for alternative models with substance and vision, courage and commitment.

As former senate president Jovito Salonga said: “This is for the youth of the land, seeking exemplary role models and guideposts for service to others, in a world grown weary and cynical about moral leadership and good governance.”

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chair and CEO of Ayala Corp. describes the special individuals as “a significant group who have sought to sue their skills, stamina and vision to mark dedicated change to addressing (the) gaps in the social development landscape…They have brought qualities like professionalism, discipline, accountability and transparency.”

I say, these are the individuals who are quietly saving this nation from ruin, the leaven that is raising us to great heights, the genes that are improving the Filipino stock. They are God’s gift to us and to the world. To quote the Bard: “O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful…”

Time to set them free

In Aug. 2003, weeks before the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, I spent days at the New Bilibid Prisons interviewing the men who were convicted in the Aquino-Galman double murder case.

I had hoped then that after 20 years, one or several of the convicts would finally own up or make a revelation as to who ordered them to do what they did and lead us to the mastermind.

I got none of that for my three-part series. What I got was the men’s recollection of that fateful day in August, what they were doing when the shots rang out and what they did after the shots rang out. And of course, what the years behind bars had done to their personal lives and their families.

Except for Sgt. Pablo Martinez who, years earlier, had been trying to say something about his complicity but was largely and strangely ignored, the rest had nothing to say. Each one spoke for himself only—where he was, what he did and did not do.

Now, the prison doors are about to swing open so that these convicts could walk free. There is no loud uproar against their impending release. There are only regrets that no one else, other than Martinez, has given leads as to the mastermind.

Ninoy’s four escorts down the plane to the tarmac have always maintained that it was Galman who shot Ninoy. And those who peppered Galman with bullets insist they were just doing their job. ``Galman did it.’’ And not one of them as the court had ruled.



To refresh the memory, the 16 convicts in the Aquino-Galman murder case are:

Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) chief Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio (who died of cancer in prison); Capt. Romeo Bautista, Avsecom intelligence director; Sgt. Pablo Martinez, special operation squadron;

2Lt. Jesus Castro, leader of the boarding party composed of Sgt. Claro Lat, TSgt. Filomeno Miranda, Sgt. Arnulfo de Mesa, CIC Mario Lazaga, CIC Rogelio Moreno;

Sgt. Romeo Desolong leader of the SWAT Team Alpha that included Sgt. Ernesto Mateo, Sgt. Rolando de Guzman, AIC Cordova Estelo, Sgt. Ruben Aquino, Sgt. Arnulfo Artates and Sgt. Felizardo Taran.

Except for Custodio, Bautista and Martinez, the rest were members of
• the boarding party that led Aquino down the plane (one of whom, and not Rolando Galman, was supposed to have shot Aquino as he descended), and
• members of Team Alpha that was in the waiting SWAT van near the airplane. Members of Team Alpha gunned down Galman, loaded the fallen Aquino into the van and brought him to Fort Bonifacio.

Also, except for Custodio and Bautista, all came from the lowest ranks of the Armed Forces. The 20 other accused--high-ranking officials in the Marcos government and the military and some private individuals and John Does--walked free.

On Sept. 28, 1990, the Sandiganbayan handed down its decision finding the 16 men guilty and sentenced them on two counts to life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua. At that time the sentence was the maximum punishment under the 1987 Constitution until it was amended to bring back the death penalty.

The Sandiganbayan said then that the convicted men ``ought to be sentenced to the extreme penalty of death.’’

Twenty years after a crime was committed, new evidence cannot be used to charge anyone who may have been party to the crime--as long as the person was in the country during those 20 years. If the person is said to have spent time outside the country, the time spent abroad would not be included in the 20 years. The burden is on the accused to prove this was not true or that he was away for only so long.

Also, once a person has been charged within the 20-year period, the prescribed period no longer applies, a lawyer explained. The prescription period applies to suspects who, for fear of prosecution, went into hiding but stayed in the country for 20 years after the crime happened. After 20 years, unless they could be accurately pointed to as the John Does, they could come out of hiding and enjoy the sun. Or suspects, charged or uncharged, could stay on in another country where there is no danger of extradition and never come back--which is what some suspects in the Aquino-Galman case have done.

The guilty who are walking free should not rest easy. Other witnesses and participants in the crime, silent and fearing arrest all these 20 years, might just come out of the woodwork and make known the guilt of many.

The double murder case had been investigated by the Fernando Commission, then the Agrava Commission. The accused had been tried in the Sandiganbayan under Justice Manuel Pamaran and acquitted in 1985, during the time of deposed Pres. Ferdinand Marcos.

After Marcos was deposed and Ninoy’s widow, Corazon Aquino became president, citizens petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen the case. The case was again tried in a Special Division of the Sandiganbayan which convicted the 16.

As of today, the convicts have served 18 years (counting from 1990) plus the years they were in detention while they were being tried the first time and the second time—a total of more than 21 years. Reclusion perpetua or a life sentence is only 30 years and a double sentence is served simultaneously. Because of their life sentence, the convicts cannot apply to be released on parole but they could apply for either pardon or commutation of sentence.

But questions remain. Who were the brains? The conspiracy was so well laid out it could only have been plotted at the top. It involved persons with massive power and resources. And yet the convicts in the case are mostly underlings, small fry, who could only have acted on obedience and played their part in an elaborate plot they knew little or nothing about.

It’s time to set them free.

A cleaner year

The Christmas season ended last Sunday on the Feast of the Epiphany which is about manifestations of the divine kind. Don’t’ we hope to also see manifestations of the human kind, the kind that would ease the burden on the environment and us critters?

The garbage and the pollution that Christmas and the New Year had wrought should have eased up by now. (The holy season has become a dirty season.) It’s time to clean up. Clean up our surroundings and our insides. And let our singing of “and heaven and nature sing” become a reality.

There is hope for the flowers. Here’s some good news:

2008 Waste Trading Markets. The Philippine Business for the Environment (PBE), the Ayala Foundation and several big corporations are continuing the Waste Trading Markets where trading and buying of waste and junk take place.

Trade your scrap paper and cardboard for bathroom tissue, table napkins, bond paper and notebooks. Exchange your empty ink and toner cartridges for remanufactured ones. Your plastic bottles and plastic scraps could be exchanged for hangers, basins, pails and stools.

If you don’t want to trade, they will buy your junk electronic/electrical equipment (PCs, laptops, radios, etc.) and broken appliances; used lead acid batteries (from cars, UPS/voltage regulators, busted rechargeable lamps); used PET plastic bottles and other plastics; aluminum and tin cans; scrap paper and cartons; used ink/toner cartridges.



There are drop-off areas for polystyrene and styrofoam scrap, junk cell phones and cell phone batteries.

Venue and dates: Jan 11 and every 2nd Friday of the month (8 am to 3 pm, Goldcrest Car Park, Ayala Center); Jan 12 and every 2nd Saturday(SM San Lazaro); Jan. 18 (to be confirmed, Alabang Town Center); Jan. 19 and every 3rd Saturday (SM Southmall, Las Pinas); Jan. 25 and every 4th Friday (Trinoma, North Edsa, QC); Jan. 26 and every 4th Saturday(SM Fairview, QC, SM Davao City. Every 1st Saturday 8 am to 2 pm (SM Marilao).

To be very sure, please call PBE, 6352650 to 51 or email mypbe@yahoo.com.

I’ve been classifying my garbage for the longest time. All the wet biodegradables go to the compost area in my backyard and become fertilizer for my plants. All that the garbage collectors have to take away are the dry stuff—paper, plastic, etc. But I’ve always been hesitant to dispose of the hard gadgets (e.g., voltage regulators, cartridges, batteries) via the garbage trucks because I don’t know where and how they’ll end up. Yes, the Waste Trading Market would know where and how.

Shocking news:
The Inquirer has just come out with a three-part series on the polluted state of the Bulacan rivers that have become the dumping place and carrier of hazardous wastes. What a shock to know that the rivers of Obando, Marilao and Meycauayan (collectively called the Meycauayan river system) have made it to the world’s Dirty 30. What a dishonor for this historic province that cradled heroes and noble Filipinos.

So close to Metro Manila (a couple of its cities are in fact part of Metro Manila), and yet not quite part of the metropolis, Bulacan, or part of it, has remained pleasantly rural and bucolic to the eyes. Until one gets a whiff of that smell and beholds the rivers that are groaning under loads of toxic heavy metals. The tanneries and the factories are among the main culprits. Include local government officials who don’t care and play blind.

And I thought Bulacan was becoming a hub for green efforts. Years ago I did a long magazine feature on one man and a community’s effort to do something—in a big, innovative way, in fact—with the garbage in Sta. Maria, Bulacan (“Garbage Turns Green in Sta. Maria,” Sunday Inquirer Magazine). At that time, I thought, wow, Bulacan is going to show the way.

Luis R. Vargas, a balikbayan who had lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, came home to find the folks back home with the same sad refrain: garbage.

With lots of guts, basic science, technology and management, Vargas, concerned townsfolk and officials turned an environmental headache into warm, rich earth.

Vargas put up a composting plant where the town’s market waste went. The primary goal was not making organic fertilizer, although there was a demand for it. The goal was zero waste with fertilizer as the by-product. Incineration was out of the question.

Sta. Maria’s Waste Processing and Recycling Project was a joint effort of the municipality, Aware Inc. headed by Vargas and the Sta. Maria Economic Foundation headed by Dr. Roman Cucio. The mayor at that time, Reylina Nicolas, was supportive of the project.

Vargas’ Aware Inc. became the town’s garbage collector and for his heroic effort, Vargas could keep the garbage and turn it into green gold—organic fertilizer.

I remember going to the plant and smelling the rich smell of the earth. It was amazing to watch the stages—from garbage collecting to composting with the help of trichoderma to harvesting to bagging to marketing.

But this was also a business. Recycling for profit would have been easier than dealing with wet, smelly, biodegradable garbage but the latter has few brave takers. A balikbayan had to show how.

It’s time for me to find out what has become of that innovative venture.

Mercury! The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) features mercury and the problem it poses on the health care system and the environment.

PCIJ announces: “In its latest report on global mercury reduction, the International Health Care without Harm cites the Philippine experience as a model in switching to alternatives and creating policy solutions.” Log on to www.pcij.org.

‘The Peace of Wild Things’

One of the profound greetings I received for the New Year was the poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry, who is known as the prophet of rural America. Based in his Kentucky farm, Wendell, 74, is a well-known conservationist, poet, novelist, essayist, professor, lecturer, philosopher, Christian writer, farmer and defender of agrarian values and small-scale farming.

Feel and listen to the poem’s soothing message. You can’t go wrong with this.

“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Yes, the peace of all things wild. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field, locusts and wild honey that a man named John subsisted on in the wilderness while preparing for the great way, the carabao in the meadow, fireflies ablaze in the trees, the corals in the reef, the creatures in the forest, the music from without and within.

I soaked myself in Berry’s words, praying them, while breathing in the good, breathing out the toxic, saying to myself that all will be well with the world, myself and every one I cherish: family and friends, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances, teachers, inspirers, healers, news sources, readers-from near and far. Please, Lord, let it be. The best is yet to come.

With the saga of the Sumilao farmers and their battle with a corporate giant still very much in the news and the national consciousness, Berry’s words and thoughts become even more relevant.

You’ll find a lot on Berry on the Internet. Known as a strong defender of rural communities and traditional family farms, Berry has developed 17 rules for the healthy functioning of sustainable local communities:

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?

2. Always include local nature -- the land, the water, the air, the native creatures -- within the membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.

4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products -- first to nearby cities, then to others).

5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of “labor saving” if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.

6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.

7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.

9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.

10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.

11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.

12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old -- not necessarily, and not always, in school. There must be no institutionalized child care and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.

13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalized. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.

14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.

15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

More about Berry: “His nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to Berry, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life.”

The threats include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil, global economics, and environmental destruction. Berry is considered to be among the most eloquent of contemporary Christian authors, frequently referring to the Gospels, the stewardship of Creation, and peacemaking.

Berry quotes to remember:

“We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?”

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

A God-filled, God-drenched year ahead!

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