A gift of story

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

DURING A QUIET MOMENT this Christmas week, I pulled out from the shelf and read again the tiny book “The Gift of Story: A wise tale about what is enough” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It looked so small beside the big, thick “Women Who Run with the Wolves,” a groundbreaking book also by Estes. On the same shelf level was my first children’s book—“Toby Runs Away”—that my mother read to me when I was little. I don’t remember how it got there.

Estes’ “The Gift of Story” is all of 32 pages. Its big drop letters at the beginning of every section go with exquisite illustrations that look like wood cut designs. Many years ago I bought two copies of the book and gave the other copy to a friend whose friend was very ill.

I read the book again because I have just come up with a little story book myself. My and Jess Abrera’s book miraculously made it to the National Bookstores in Metro Manila the day before Christmas and it was selling. Some branches had to have their supply replenished. I thought, it was when the book was out there that I was pondering what the story might mean. Or if I did it right. That is, from Estes’ Jungian perspective.

Estes is a known American poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist who was raised in a now nearly vanished oral and ethnic tradition. She founded a human rights organization that has, as one of its missions, to broadcast strengthening stories via short-wave radio to trouble spots around the world.

In “The Gift of Story,” Estes tells a story within a story within a story, or several stories in one story, woven in a way that keeps you in awe and wonderment. Despite the bleak landscape of war and poverty Estes’ story glows because of the way it is told.

One of the children’s books I read before I sat down to write my story was “Sami in the Time of the Troubles” by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland (watercolor by Ted Lewin) which is about a child caught up in the horrors of war. A difficult plot to tackle indeed. But they pulled it off.

I asked myself, how was I going to write a children’s story about the recent natural disasters that left many children terrified, homeless or dead? I wanted to write a healing story for kids after I visited a disaster area and learned from news reports and first-hand accounts about the trauma that the children suffered. Well, to make a long story short, the story wrote itself. And Jess, the multi-awarded cartoonist of the Inquirer, said yes to making it come to life in full color.

“Bituin and the Big Flood” /Si Bituin at ang Malaking Baha (Anvil Publishing, 24 pages, P78.50) is dedicated to the children who lost their lives during “Ondoy” and “Pepeng,” and to the children who survived. The story is in English and Pilipino.

Stories hold magic. And so important in sharing that magic is the way they are told. Stories are also a medium for healing especially for children who cannot verbalize in precise words the feelings they have inside. A story is told, children listen and get connected to the characters in the story.

Children have stories to tell, too. Through these they are able to surface and release their inner and hidden feelings.

The story hopes to help the children who experienced the recent natural disasters and tragedies that visited homes and communities. Told simply and through illustrations, the story is about family and community, about helping one another and doing something good during and after the difficult times.

I thank child psychotherapist Dr. Ma. Lourdes A. Carandang for her input to improve the story and the guide questions.

At the end of the story are suggested guide questions the storyteller could ask to encourage the children to tell their own stories or express what they remember and feel through words, drawings, play and other ways. We listen closely to what they say, help ease their fears and give them hope.

Here’s what Estes says about stories. “Like night dreams, stories often use symbolic language, therefore bypassing the ego and persona, and traveling straight to the spirit and soul who listen for the ancient and universal instructions imbedded there. Because of this process, stories can teach, correct errors, lighten the heart and the darkness, provide psychic shelter, assist transformation and heal wounds.

“(T)he tales people tell one another weave a strong fabric that can warm the coldest emotional or spiritual nights. So the stories that rise up out of the group become, over time, both extremely personal and quite eternal, for they take on a life of their own when told over and over again.

“Though none of us will live forever, the stories can. As long as one soul remains who can tell the story, and that by the recounting of the tale, the greatest forces of love, mercy, generosity and strength are continuously called into being in the world, I promise you…it will be enough.”

A dear friend who lived and worked in Indonesia for more than 20 years gave me a big colorful book, “Letters from Aceh” which contains the letters/stories, drawings and pictures of children from Aceh who survived the Dec. 2004 tsunami that killed some 250,000 people in Asia and beyond. It also has photographs of the devastation. The exchange of letters (in the kids’ handwriting) is between kids from Aceh and kids from around parts of the world. The recent killer typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng that hit the Philippines were nothing compared to the 2004 tragedy.

Karina Bolasco of Anvil publishing just texted to say that there is a 36 percent discount for bulk orders of “Bituin.” Contact marketing@anvilpublishing.com or call 6375141, 6373621.

With God’s awesome mercy, 2010 will be gentler than the year just past.

Can heaven and nature sing?

Philippind Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
HAVE A QUIET and truly meaningful celebration of Christmas. And please pause and remember those who cannot celebrate because they are in deep pain and sorrow.

Yesterday, two days before Christmas Day, journalists led a nationwide candle vigil for justice to mark the first month of the unspeakable crime that gave the Philippines the infamous reputation as the most dangerous place on earth for journalists. That now sounds cliché. But unspeakable grief is never cliché.

Here in Metro Manila vigils were held in media offices, the Inquirer among them, and at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City.

The vigil was not just to remember the 57 victims of the massacre that included 30 journalists but to also remind that we must continue to demand justice so that justice is served soonest and that we must be watchful of the prosecution of the cases. Lawyers and advocates assisting the victims’ families gave updates. Journalists who cover the Maguindanao situation were also invited.

As I ponder over the gruesome fate of the 57 who were murdered one by one last Nov. 23 in Maguindanao, I cannot get myself to relish fully the joy of Christmas. I imagine the families, the children especially, who lost the persons most dear to them and whom they need most in their lives.

We didn’t even have to imagine, we saw photographs and moving images of the bereaved prostrate and inconsolable in their grief. They will carry the pain of loss all their lives. They will never be the same again.

When Mayor Andal Mapatuan Jr., the principal suspect and brains was mobbed by irate journalists (mostly photojournalists with their “deadly weapons”) covering the preliminary investigation at the Department of Justice last week, he got a few blows. They were not deliberate, we were told, but they might as well be. The invectives from the raging public were.

Human Rights commissioner Leila de Lima instantly warned against violent intents against Ampatuan Jr. and that was to be expected. But, come on, there had to be at least some display of public outrage, particularly from the media, personally directed at Ampatuan Jr. right there as he walked manacled, wearing a bullet proof vest and heavily guarded and protected.

That surely must have been the first time Ampatuan Jr. ever faced a crowd so angry at him. Nobody and nobody in the past had dared cross his path.

And when, on Nov. 23, a group tried in the proper and official way to contest his authority through the electoral process, he used guns, goons, backhoes and everything in his power to eliminate all of them in one full sweep, accompanying journalists and lawyers included. So it was but right that at the DOJ, Ampatuan Jr. got a taste of the wrath of the public that could not even match the wrath he reserves for those who dare challenge him in his Maguindanao turf.

So, take that, and that and that. What’s a little shove? That was fine by me. Just please don’t kill him or allow him to kill himself. I want to see him being read his sentence.

Too bad he won’t fry. He will not hang or be killed by lethal injection as the death penalty has been outlawed. But if it were not, I would probably not write a word to say he should live. I think I remember Pope John Paul II say that death penalty might allowed but only in very rare and extreme cases. Maybe for the Hannibal Lecters of this world which the brains of the Nov. 23 massacre could be compared to.

I have watched a convict (who had raped several of his daughters repeatedly) die by lethal injection when capital punishment was briefly revived during the Estrada administration. Believe me, it is something I will never forget.

I do not apologize for writing about a gruesome subject on the eve of Christmas. If the families of the victims of the Nov. 23 massacre are reading this, I would like them to know that the joy in my Christmas, has also been diminished. But only diminished, I must say, if compared to theirs that has been totally snuffed out. I cannot fathom their grief, I cannot measure their pain.

Last year, my Christmas column was “And heaven and nature sing”, a line from the famous carol “Joy to the world” written in 1719 by Isaac Watts. That line goes with the blast of trumpets that breaks open the skies and makes the earth heave. Now my Christmas column is asking, can heaven and nature sing?

Indeed, can heaven and nature sing after the tragedies that recently visited us. Can heaven and nature sing after huge climate change conference in Copenhagen ended last week?

Better than nothing was the common refrain. Meaning, the Copenhagen Accord left much to be desired. Here are excerpts from the statement of Eco-waste Coalition, a network of some 85 civil society groups, on the “disappointing” accord:

“It is truly regrettable that our leaders failed to fulfill their historic and moral duty to craft an ambitious treaty to address the climate crisis with clear and specific greenhouse emission reduction targets and adequate financing mechanism to help developing countries grapple with the effects of climate change and enable their transition to a low carbon development pathway. They could have done better than condemn us and future generations to climate hell.”

“We urge politicians as well as citizens and institutions across the globe to insist on a just, ambitious and legally-binding deal in 2010 to avert the climate crisis from escalating further and causing massive hardship on poor and marginalized communities who will bear the brunt of Copenhagen’s dismal failure.”

Still, have a truly green Christmas!

Global editorial on climate change

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

LAST WEEK, one day before the Copenhagen summit (Dec. 7-18) on climate change opened, 56 major newspapers in 45 countries spoke with one voice. They came out with a common global editorial written in 20 languages on climate change.

I was hoping that Philippine newspapers would join major newspapers all over the world and carry the global editorial that London’s The Guardian had initiated. But last week the Philippine media were just too caught up in the brutality without compare that visited our ranks. News about the mass murder in Maguindanao of 30 media practitioners plus 27 non-media persons, and the public unraveling of the unspeakable evil that had long stalked that Mindanao wasteland could hardly give way to anything else. The pages of Philippine newspapers have been soaking in blood since Nov. 23.

The entire global editorial, “14 days to seal history's judgment on this generation”, cannot fit in this space, so I have only excerpts here. You can find the complete text, as well as the story behind its drafting, in the internet.

“Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

“Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

“Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

“The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea.

“Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

“But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."

“At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

“Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

“Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

“Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

“Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".

“The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.”

Journalists rage: Stop the killing

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

ENRAGED JOURNALISTS clad in black, both local and foreign, took to the streets of Manila Wednesday, becoming newsmakers themselves by denouncing the massacre of at least 30 media workers and 27 others on Nov. 23 in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

At the same time in Maguindanao, journalists briefly took a break from covering military operations and trekked to the massacre site in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman to light candles in honor of their colleagues killed in the country’s worst case of election-related violence.

Protest rallies in different parts of the country and the world were also held to coincide with Wednesday’s “Black Day” march, Nestor Burgos of the National Union of Journalists (NUJP) said.

More than a thousand protesters from various sectors in Manila marched with journalists from España Avenue to the Chino Roces (formerly Mendiola) Bridge near Malacañang Palace to shout out their protest close to the seat of government power. They called for justice for the victims and an end to the culture of impunity.

Most dangerous

They also denounced and blamed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the massacre that has earned the Philippines the reputation of being the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.

“Stop the killing” and “Never again to martial law” rang out as the marchers wound their way toward Mendiola.

One participant carried a placard with a toy backhoe on it—a reminder of how the victims and their vehicles were buried in mass graves with the use of a local government-owned backhoe that was waiting at the massacre site. Many wore black shirts and arm bands.

Protesters carried three black coffins symbolizing the death of accountability, press freedom and rule of law. Others carried white coffins and placards with the victims’ names and photos.

The body of a reporter from the Midland Review has yet to be found.

Independent probe

The November 23 Movement, a coalition of media organizations, and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) were the main organizers of the rallies.

The movement has been calling for an independent investigation of the crime. Aside from journalists, the dead included two women lawyers, and members of the Mangudadatu family and their supporters.

With the larger-than-life statue of press freedom icon Chino Roces in the background, journalists took turns condemning the unabated killing of journalists since Ms Arroyo became president in 2001.

The Nov. 23 massacre brought to more than 100 the number of slain journalists since 1986, about two-thirds of them since Ms Arroyo took power, said Roby Alampay, executive director of Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).

Inquirer publisher and Philippine Press Institute president Isagani Yambot delivered an impassioned speech in Filipino calling on journalists not to let their guard down. “Sumumpa tayo na hindi tayo titigil (Let us make a vow not to let up),” Yambot said.

Referring to the Nov. 23 victims, Yambot said, “Ang kanilang kaluluwa ay nananaghoy at humihingi ng katarungan (Their souls are crying out for justice).”

He quoted poet John Donne: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

This won’t be forgotten

“Our quest for justice will not end in the filing of cases and the arrest of the suspects,” echoed NUJP director Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao chief correspondent, who was among the leaders of the march in Maguindanao.

“This story will not end even if justice is done. We will not allow this to be forgotten,” Alampay added.

Alampay said Jakarta journalists were the first to hold a protest rally after the Maguindanao massacre.

The Inquirer has set up a fund for the children of the slain journalists.

“The slain journalists left behind 75 children and dependents. An entire generation of journalists in Mindanao has been lost,” said Sydney Morning Herald’s Ruth Pollard, an IFJ representative who joined a fact-finding mission in Maguindanao.

Two past deans and the present dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Mass Communication—Georgina Encanto, Luis Teodoro and Rolando Tolentino, respectively—marched with the protesters and carried their own streamer.

Organizers announced candle-lighting rituals all over the country to be held on Dec. 23.

How they love one another

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

WISHING YOU ALL a meaningful Human Rights Day. It’s been 62 years since the International Declaration of Human Rights was signed and adopted by nations the world over. And where are we?

Last week’s Time magazine cover story was about “The Decade from Hell”. Indeed, in the past 10 years, terrorist attacks, wars, financial melt-downs, natural and man-made disasters, viruses, diseases, hunger and all kinds of violence have visited this planet and sent humanity running for cover. Humanity continues to be under attack.

We are now ending this decade and entering the next. Christians are observing the Advent season and ushering in Christmas. Muslims have just ended their own yearly observance of Eid ul Adha or feast of sacrifice. All these as we Filipinos remain shocked beyond words by the Nov. 23 massacre of more than 60 human beings, 30 journalists among them, in the Ampatuan fiefdom in Maguindanao.

The evils and tragedies of the past and the present, the human rights violations and crimes against humanity have been widely documented and written about, but sadly, the little stories about compassion and caring for one another are often unwritten and forgotten. The great news about Efren Penaflorida who was voted the CNN Hero of the Year was all but drowned out by the blood that flowed in Maguindanao.

I was recently invited to the 20th anniversary of the Coalition of Services of the Elderly (COSE) and the launching of the book “Love Grows: A Primer” and the 10 Ulirang Nakakatanda (10 Outstanding Older People) Awards. I was asked to say a few worlds about the little book which COSE published. Many of the people at the celebration were advanced not only in age but also in wisdom and in grace. Most of them came from the poor sector of society. One of the special guests was a 107-year-old lady who walked straight to the podium unaided.

Written history—as we’ve studied and read it—has always been from the point of view of those who were in power or wanted to wrest power. The history of nations were written from the point of view of politics and power and the people who made things happen in a big way. The scholars who wrote them do not include the voices of the little people who were themselves part of history. I mean real voices, real faces, real stories.

I say all these because I think COSE’s unpretentious book could provide some missing voices in our cultural history. Some of the stories of the goldie oldies tell of a bygone era that many of us have not experienced. The war, the idyllic countryside of their youth and, to borrow the title of a great opus, love in the time of cholera.

What’s different about this book? This book is mainly about caring and community among older people most of whom happen to be poor. It is about growing and becoming. It is about dignity in the face of the inevitable.

I praise COSE for making this book happen. I have often wondered what it would have been like if there were no writers who wrote about the life of Jesus Christ, what he taught about love and justice and forgiveness and peace and giving up one’s life for one’s friends. We would have little to go by.

So you see, I said to the older people and young ones present, it is important that the good things are recalled (while they can) and told and written and read so that older people of the present and the future will be inspired to give of themselves. The stories in the book are not stunning stories about dramatic lives and dramatic deeds. They are small stories about loving service.

This book reassures us that we have not lost it all—to politicians, warlords, climate change, globalization, showbiz, fast food and what-have-you. Many generations from now, this humble book will really be history. It will provide some missing pieces. Many who will read it will be amazed and they will say, “See, how they loved one another.”

Here are COSE’s “10 Ulirang Nakakatanda” of 2009 and their good deeds. (This is probably the only time the awardees will read their names in a newspaper.)

Pelagia Baclayo took a course on herbal medicine and then, as member of an organized group of older people, opened a herbal garden for the community. Salve Basiano, whose husband is blind, helped organize blind musicians to play in malls as an income generating project. She is also the past president of the Confederation of Older People’s Organizations of the Philippines.

Estrella Buelo, president of the Quiapo Group of Older People is active in prison work. Perfecto Cunanan is a farmer leader who organized older farmers to join community based programs. Rodolfo Larida is one of the few male home carers in his community and is available 24/7 for bedridden patients in urban poor areas.

Crispulo Migrino is disabled but serves as president of the federation of 13 groups in Commonwealth-, QC.

Epifania Noblado not only takes care of the infirm in Arayat, Pampanga, she advocates home care to be part of government policy.

Eufrocia Omayam helped develop community-based programs in Davao which allow older people to take care of one another. Lina Patricio’s home in the city was demolished and her family was dumped in Paliparan, Cavite but she, along with a group of religious sisters and other older people, helped to organize her community. Priscilla Mariano is a respected elder in her community. Though not in good health, she pushed the passing of an ordinance that would recognize the needs of older people so that they could be assisted. She has been serving in the board of hospital and water services for 35 years without compensation.

COSE’s programs are managed by older people themselves. An affiliate of Helpage International, COSE aims to keep older people active in communities and increase awareness of their importance.

Journalists and women as safety shield

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
IF I COULD GET HOLD of even only one of the perpetrators of the Nov. 23 broad daylight mass murder/massacre of 57 human beings, 30 of them from the media, I would ask only one question. (And I shudder to think that I know the answer to my own question.) My question would be: What or who made you think or believe that you could commit this evil deed and get away with it?

I cry out, de profundis: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, how have we come to this? For the 21st century or for just this decade, the Philippines can now claim a day of horror, a day of evil of its own to remember: 11/23.

People used to say the name of the month and day to be remembered, such as Sept. 21 or 
Aug. 21, or invoke numbers to never forget, such as P.D. 1081, to conjure up images of blood and terror. Or they use them to remember some significant event, like Nueve de Febrero (name of a street) and Mayo Uno (Labor Day).

Now we abbreviate the dates and turn them into catchwords, logos or tattoos so that we will never forget, because there are too many to not forget. Tragedies like 9/11. More than the sound and the look of the numbers, there is something about them that should make us remember and vow to never allow these evil to happen again.

We’ve run out of superlatives to describe the massacre that was so well planned and so swiftly carried out in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, on 11/23.

I write about this horror even though, in the past days, so much have been written and said about it. I want the story to be part, not just of my journalism files, but to be part of me as a human being who happens to be a journalist. I share in the grief in a very profound way. I burst into tears as soon as I learned about what happened to the journalists and to the many who thought they were safe being with them.

The more than 50 victims did not die in a battlefield or a bomb blast or by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. They were, in fact, in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing. And they were murdered one by one.

Their killers made sure none of them would make it alive to civilization to tell the gory tale. The mass graves had been dug ahead of time. A backhoe was on standby to move the earth and immediately cover the corpses and the vehicles. What a massive undertaking indeed. But the mastermind and perpetrators believed, they felt very assured, that they could get away with it. With impunity.

Evil forces were lying in wait for the convoy to pass through that stretch of road while on its way to the Commission on Elections. The whys and hows of that fateful road trip is well known by now. Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu’s wife Genalin, accompanied by supporters, lawyers and a horde of journalists, were on their way to file Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for governor that would challenge the powerful warlord Ampatuan clan. Mangudadatu stayed behind. The convoy was waylaid. The rest is bloody history.

It used to be that there was safety in having journalists and women in risky undertakings. They act not only as safety shield, journalists could also be witnesses to unfolding events and later be counted upon to tell the truth about what they have witnessed.

When Sen. Ninoy Aquino came home from exile in 1983, he had journalists with him. Moments before he was assassinated he told them to watch out. It could be over fast, he said. Those last moments and the moment he was shot were recorded on video and on voice recorder. The tape recorder of Time magazine’s Sandra Burton was on when the shots rang out as Ninoy descended from the plane. Photojournalists on the ground captured images of Ninoy bloodied on the ground.

Now we are waiting to hear the sound of the massacre that was supposedly recorded on audio tape by one of the victims. I hope this recording exists.

There is safety in women and in numbers. Bare breasted women from indigenous tribes have confronted military men who protected infrastructure projects that would destroy ancestral lands. Weepy whistle-blower Jun Lozada surrounded himself with nuns who acted as his security cordon when he testified about the alleged payoffs that involved government officials.

Toward the end of the martial law years when repression of the media again intensified, the women journalists came out with damning article after damning article to expose the abuses of the Marcos military regime. We thought we were invincible. And despite the series of interrogations meant to cow us, we continued to dare. The military backed off when we haled them to court.

That feeling of invincibility now belongs to the past. Here in the Philippines and in many dangerous places abroad, women journalists are as unsafe as their male colleagues. I think of Russian journalist Anna Politskaya who was murdered recently, of our own Marlene Esperat who was gunned down before her children. Nuns who braved the wilds and the barricades have been brutally killed, shot at close range. I think of Sr. Dorothy Stang who defended the Amazon forest and the indigenous communities of Brazil. I think of the Maryknoll missionaries who were killed in El Salvador and the nuns in East Timor.

Journalists are sometimes thought to be intrepid survivors, the last ones left standing. Although many have died in the crossfire, they were not the targets. Those who survived brought us stories and images of historical events. Movies about these events usually have journalists weaving in and out of the scenes. They do not die like the protagonists. They grow old and write memoirs, books and historical novels.

Somehow 11/23 changed all that.

Cory Aquino, nun, 4 activists join Bantayog heroes

Philippine Daily Inquirer/News

FORMER PRESIDENT Corazon C. Aquino leads this year’s batch of heroes and martyrs whose names will be inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument of Heroes).

Besides Aquino, the latest additions to the roster are Sr. Asuncion Martinez, ICM, and activists Antonio G. Ariado, Melito T. Glor, Alfredo L. Malicay and Ronald Jan F. Quimpo.

The yearly Bantayog rites are held either on Nov. 30, Bonifacio Day, or Dec. 10, Human Rights Day.

Both Aquino and Martinez have been classified as heroes. They died of natural causes at a late age—Aquino at 76 on Aug. 1 and Martinez at 84 in 1994. The four young men, who all died in their 20s in the 1970s, are considered martyrs.

This year’s honorees bring to 179 the number of names etched on the black granite Wall of Remembrance near the 45-foot bronze monument by renowned sculptor Eduardo Castrillo that depicts a defiant mother holding a fallen son.

The monument, the wall and other structures in the Bantayog complex are dedicated to “the nation’s modern-day martyrs and heroes who fought against all odds to help regain freedom, peace, justice, truth and democracy in the country.”

The Bantayog recognition is conferred only after a close examination of a person’s life and manner of death.

Aquino couple

Aquino, fondly called Tita Cory by Filipinos, continues to be recognized around the world as an icon of democracy and had received numerous honors here and abroad while she was alive.

Her husband, former Sen. Benigno S. Aquino, who was assassinated in 1983, was among the first 65 persons whose names were etched on the Wall of Remembrance in 1992. The Aquinos are not the first couple to be included in the Bantayog roster. Their sacrifices and love of country are known to almost every Filipino.

Bantayog is honoring the former President for leading the fight to end the Marcos dictatorship, restoring civilian supremacy, reestablishing government accountability and helping restore the faith of the Filipino in themselves, their country and in democracy.

She is also being cited for “upholding her electoral mandate by stepping down at the end of her term, thus ensuring a calm transition.”

Nun at barricades

Martinez, or Sister Asun as she was fondly called, of the Immaculate Heart of Mary began her missionary work in the academic setting. When she was nearing her 60s, she responded to the call to work for the “church of the poor” and immersed herself among sugar workers in the Visayas.

She worked with the National Federation of Sugar Workers and the Federation of Free Farmers, and became exposed to the plight of sugar workers and farmers. She was among the founders of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines.

When she returned to Manila in 1972, she immersed herself among workers and the urban poor. In 1975, when workers of the La Tondeña Distillery decided to strike to press their demands, she was among those they trusted to help them.

When soldiers broke up the strike and hauled the strikers to prison, Sister Asun dared them to arrest her, too, and held on to the bus that carried the workers.

“La Tondeña was my second baptism,” Martinez wrote in the book “I Climb Mountains.” She said: “I acquired a new heart, a new vision, a new understanding of my country's history and my people.”

After La Tondeña, Sister Asun became involved with the Urban Missionaries, the Friends of the Workers and other groups that supported workers. She continued to live with the poor in Bagong Barrio in Caloocan City, long after she had reached “retirement age.”

She ran The Wooden House which became a haven for distressed workers and activists.

Martinez died in 1994.

Escribiente

Born in 1949 to a well-to-do family in Sorsogon, Ariado excelled in academics. A gifted orator, poet and stage actor, he was also called escribiente or writer. He was also into sports.

When he went to college at Far Eastern University, Ariado became exposed to national issues. He joined demonstrations and experienced rough police dispersal. Undaunted, he continued to join rallies against US involvement in Vietnam.

Ariado became a member of the National Union of Students of the Philippines and, later, of the militant Kabataang Makabayan (KM). In 1970, he transferred to Araneta University but soon dropped out and returned home.

He then began organizing a local chapter of KM. He organized a long march in Bicol so that ordinary people could air their grievances and press for reforms.

When martial law was imposed in 1972, Ariado learned that he was on the government’s wanted list. With other activists, he went underground and joined the guerrilla movement. His family suffered harassment because of his activities.

A year later, Ariado and 12 others died in a military operation. He was 24.

Guerrilla fighter

Glor, who was from Quezon province, also came from a well-to-do family.

In high school, Glor was often called the campus James Dean. Bold and daring, he was a natural leader. In his yearbook, he wrote that his ambition was to be a soldier.

But Glor went to the University of the Philippines for a pre-med course, hoping to become a doctor. Soon activism got in the way of this ambition. He was often in protest rallies.

When martial law was declared in 1972, Glor went home to Quezon and recruited people for the armed resistance. He soon became one of the leading officers of the communist armed wing New People’s Army (NPA) in Southern Luzon and Bicol.

Glor married someone named Flor in 1973, but marriage did not stop him from doing his guerrilla work. He was a wanted man.

While on a trek with his pregnant wife and comrades, military troops caught up with them and opened fire without warning.

Glor died in the first volley. He was 24.

His wife, who was unhurt, was arrested. One of their companions, Manuel Blasco, was executed the next day.

The Melito Glor Command, an NPA command in Southern Luzon, was named after him.

Scholar

Malicay was the son of poor farmers from Davao. As a student, he was hardworking and showed natural leadership. He graduated from high school with honors and was awarded a college scholarship by the 4H Club Scholarship Program.

He enrolled at the UP College of Agriculture in Los Baños, Laguna, and studied agricultural chemistry.

Malicay showed exceptional writing skills and became editor in chief from 1968 to 1969 of the Aggie Green and Gold, the student publication of the college. He joined the KM and, later, the Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity.

As a KM organizer, Malicay recruited members from different schools. He wrote articles for the school publication, urging students to embrace nationalism, democracy and academic freedom.

He also supported friends from the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan.

Malicay and his friends organized a Friday discussion group which met and discussed the books of nationalist Renato Constantino and Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong.

Malicay finished his course in 1971 but he did not seek employment after graduation. He went into full-time organizing in Laguna, Quezon and Batangas, calling on the youth to demand social reforms for the exploited sectors of society.

He went back to school for graduate studies in UP Diliman, but when martial law was imposed in 1972, he returned to Los Baños to do full-time recruitment work against the dictatorship.

In 1973, while Malicay was in Malabon for a meeting with fellow activists, the house they were in was raided by the military. Three were arrested and two were shot dead.

Malicay was one of the dead. He was 27.

Because his family was too poor to travel from Davao to Manila, Malicay’s fraternity brothers took charge of retrieving his body and burying him at the Navotas Public Cemetery. Three of his brothers later also joined the anti-Marcos movement.

Well-behaved boy

Quimpo was known to be a well-behaved boy, but he also had a rebellious streak.

Born in Iloilo City, Quimpo was the seventh of nine children. He attended San Beda College in Manila for his elementary schooling and went to Philippine Science High School (PSHS) where he got exposed to activism. He was only in high school when he joined the KM.

He joined rallies to protest a sudden increase in gas prices in 1971. The shooting of a student further fanned the flame of protests.

Although he was only a senior at PSHS, Quimpo joined the students in barricading the UP campus in Diliman, Quezon City. The standoff became to be known as the Diliman Commune.

Quimpo went to UP for a degree in BS Geology. But his love for science could not match his desire to become a revolutionary and “serve the masses.” He left school and spent time in poor quarrying communities on the outskirts of the city where he felt like he was in a “Little Isabela,” the northern province where many activists dreamed of going.

Quimpo became aware of police abuses against the poor and was determined to work for their cause.

One day in 1973, while Quimpo was in the house of a fellow activist, narcotics agents raided the house. He and two other students, and two sisters who lived in the house were taken to a camp and subjected to psychological and physical torture.

One of the sisters, Liliosa Hilao, died after suffering torture.

Quimpo was a changed man after the experience. He quietly resumed his geology course. One day in 1977, the Philippine Constabulary raided the Quimpo house to arrest him and his younger brother, Ishmael Jr.

Not finding them, the soldiers left. One morning two weeks later, Quimpo, then 23, left home, saying he would be back for dinner. He never returned. He was never found.

Memorial

Located at the corner of EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue) and Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, the Bantayog Memorial Center complex now boasts of a P16-million building, with a 1,000-square-meter floor space. It has a small auditorium with 72 seats, symbolic of the year (1972) tyrannical rule was imposed through martial law.

A museum and library-archives are also housed in the building.

Bantayog’s 1.5-hectare property was donated by the government, through Landbank, a year after the Marcos dictatorship was toppled and Aquino became president.

Every year, names are added to the Wall of Remembrance. The first 65 names were engraved on the black granite wall in 1992. An estimated 10,000 Filipinos are believed to have suffered and died during the Marcos dictatorship that ended in 1986.

Set up after the 1986 People Power Revolution, The Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation Inc. is chaired by Alfonso T. Yuchengco. Former Sen. Jovito R. Salonga is chair emeritus.

Bantayog’s facilities could accommodate special gatherings for special occasions. (For details, please call 4348343 or visit www.bantayogngbayani.net).

Mangyans, mining and betrayal

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
COURAGE, HUMILITY AND COMPASSION. These, Bishop Broderick Pabillo prayed, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Lito Atienza would have so that he would correct his mistake.

Pabillo is chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ Commission on Social Action, Justice and Peace and auxiliary bishop of Manila. He was one of the hunger strikers who joined the Mangyans and priests of Mindoro to oppose large-scale mining in watershed and ancestral domain areas.

Two days into the hunger strike, the anti-mining protestors thought they had triumphed. They had earlier met with Atienza to urge him to cancel the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) that his office had issued to Intex Resources, a Norwegian mining company, last Oct. 14 despite strong and valid opposition from the community, the local government and the Catholic Church.

After the meeting with Atienza, a Mass of thanksgiving was held. Bishops Warlito Cajandig and Pabillo concelebrated with some 25 priests on the sidewalk fronting DENR. Arnan Panaligan and Josephine Sato, governors of Mindoro Oriental and Occidental respectively, as well as Alagad Party-list Rep. Diogenes Osabel, nuns and anti-mining advocates were present.

Moments later, they found out that they had been had. Atienza only suspended the ECC for 90 days. This meant that Intex could work a little harder to fulfill the supposed requirements and it would soon be back in the field.

Two days ago, a whole-page open letter to Atienza signed by Pabillo came out in the Inquirer. The bishop’s statement, with the backing of several Church institutions, questioned Atienza’s decision.

“We all felt betrayed,” Pabillo said. “If the ECC was acquired with irregularity, why should it be just suspended for 90 days? Is it not invalid, and being so, must be revoked? [I]n front of two provincial governors, several mayors, congressmen, priests, two bishops, DENR officials and several Mangyan leaders, you were emphatic about your allegiance to the law and your assurance to punish anyone in your office who does not abide by the law.”

What happened here? Only Atienza knows. And so the hunger strikers are still camped out in front of the DENR.

The Mangyans and anti-mining advocates have been protesting the proposed nickel mining project that would cover 11,218 hectares and span four towns in Mindoro Oriental and Occidental, including the ancestral domain of Alangan and Tadyawan Mangyans.

In 2005, Mindoro Oriental’s Sangguniang Panlalawigan passed an ordinance declaring a 25-year moratorium on mining activities. The mining project will span four towns: Victoria, Pola and Socorro in Oriental Mindoro and Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro. It is expected to produce 100 to 120 million tons of ore over a period of 15 to 20 years. Mindoro’s nickel laterite deposit is believed to be one of the biggest in the world.

Mindoro Island, home of the Mangyans, is the country’s fourth largest rice-producing area with P12 billion worth of annual agricultural income.

Panaligan told the Inquirer, “We realize that this is not the end. We have to refocus and fight to show this project has no social acceptability.” Social acceptability is one of the requirements for the issuance of an ECC.

Fr. Edwin Gariguez of Alyansa Laban Sa Mina and Mangyan Mission said of the 90-day suspension, “DENR is merely asking Intex to complete their papers. We want an investigation.”

Former Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez was said to have opposed the Mindoro mining project and refused to issue an ECC after seeing for himself the watershed area where the project would operate.

Inquirer sources showed documents to prove that the issuance of the ECC for Intex had been “fast-tracked,” allegedly by fiat “from above,” in order “to ensure optimum economic growth without delay.”

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) system had also been simplified. This was the reason Intex got an ECC without wide consultations with communities, the sources said.

According to the Ateneo-based Simbahang Lingkod Bayan, “the large scale mining operations of Intex Resources... may bring about the destruction of a contiguous watershed and that can lead to the displacement of several indigenous Mangyan communities in Oriental Mindoro.”

I dread a Marinduque-like mining disaster that would wreak havoc on the mountains, the seas and countless human and wild life.

Mindoro is included in a detailed study on mining in Mindoro, Sibuyan Island and Mindanao, “Philippines: Mining or Food,” (2008) commissioned by several international development agencies, including Misereor of the Catholic Bishops of Germany. The study was done by Robert Goodland, environmental scientist specializing in economic development, and Clive Wicks, engineering, agriculture and environmental specialist, with the UK-based Working Group on Mining in the Philippines. The study concluded: “Intex and all mining companies should comply with the mining moratoria... The Intex Mindoro Mining Project, and the other 91 mining applications being considered for the tropical island, would damage most of the water catchment area and the possibility of sustainable food production in the foreseeable future of Mindoro.”

I have been to Mangyan territories a number of times. The hardy and gentle Mangyans are close to my heart. They still adhere to their age-old traditions, but they are no longer the push-overs that lowlanders thought them to be. They are now proudly reviving the use of their syllabic script. A Mangyan college student taught me how to write my name in Mangyan syllabic script.

The Pope at the hunger summit

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
AROUND 1.02 BILLION people are suffering chronic hunger today, said a report released last week by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme. This sharp rise in hunger triggered by the global economic crisis has hit the poorest people in developing countries hardest, revealing a fragile world food system in urgent need of reform, the report added.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf warned: “The silent hunger crisis affecting one-sixth of all humanity poses a serious risk for world peace and security.” He called the 1.02 billion “our tragic achievement in these modern days.” Watch Diouf’s shocking six-second video message in www.1billionhungry.org.

Before I say more, let me say that the Philippines is among the 31 countries listed as suffering from “severe localized food insecurity.”

The World Summit on Food Security (WSFS), also known as the Hunger Summit, opened in Rome on Monday, which was also World Food Day. Spearheaded by FAO, it had no less than Pope Benedict XVI exhorting the FAO member states’ representatives in all their official languages: “God bless your efforts to ensure that all people are given their daily bread.” FAO’s logo has the words “Fiat panis” which means “Let there be bread/food.”
But the Pope had his stinging moments. “Hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty,” he told the delegates. “Opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions.”

His thoughts went to the poor, rural regions of the world. “Access to international markets must be favored for those products coming from the poorest area, which today are often relegated to the margins. In order to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to separate the rules of international trade from the logic of profit viewed as an end in itself.”

The Pope’s pronouncement on profit at the hunger summit echoed what he said in his first ever social encyclical published in July 2009, “Caritas in Veritate” (Love in Truth), where he condemned unbridled profit. “Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

I clicked Find on the computer screen to find the words “food” and “hunger” in “Caritas in Veritate” and found a long chunk on hunger and food security. Here are excerpts from chapter 2 which makes the Pope sound like a veteran grassroots development worker.

“Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not permitted to take their place at the rich man’s table… Feed the hungry (Mt 25: 35, 37, 42) is an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus, concerning solidarity and the sharing of goods. Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet.

“Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional. What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political irresponsibility, nationally and internationally.

“The problem of food insecurity needs to be addressed within a long-term perspective, eliminating the structural causes that give rise to it and promoting the agricultural development of poorer countries. This can be done by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation systems, transport, organization of markets, and in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology that can make the best use of the human, natural and socio-economic resources that are more readily available at the local level, while guaranteeing their sustainability over the long term as well.

“All this needs to be accomplished with the involvement of local communities in choices and decisions that affect the use of agricultural land. In this perspective, it could be useful to consider the new possibilities that are opening up through proper use of traditional as well as innovative farming techniques, always assuming that these have been judged, after sufficient testing, to be appropriate, respectful of the environment and attentive to the needs of the most deprived peoples.

“At the same time, the question of equitable agrarian reform in developing countries should not be ignored. The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life…

“It is important, moreover, to emphasize that solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a solution of the current global crisis, as politicians and directors of international institutions have begun to sense in recent times…”

There’s more.

On a sour note, Fian International, an NGO, said that the summit declaration has failed to mention “in any way the sell-out of African and Asian countries’ agricultural lands to foreign states and companies.” I had written about this issue (“Global land grab, agricolonialism,” 7/23/09). It’s the latest scourge.

Remembering Berlin

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
I OWN A PIECE or pieces of the Berlin Wall. A friend who went to Berlin shortly after the fall of the wall in 1989 brought home a piece for me.

Two years later, in 1991, I and several journalists were in Germany for a two-week cross-country tour—courtesy of a German press association, Germany’s department of tourism and Lufthansa. This was my second time in Germany. Berlin was one of the places we visited. We were there for the first anniversary of the reunification of West and East Germany which happened on Oct. 3, 1990.

Of course, I got pieces of the wall, but that time they came as part of a brooch which young artists made and sold near the wall area. I bought a beautiful molded face of a woman with one cheek covered with tiny pieces of the wall. I still have it and wear it now and then.

I remember being in a square where the statues of communism’s godfathers Marx and Engels stood. On the base of the statues someone had sprayed graffiti which said “Wir sind unschuldig.” Unschuldig means un-guilty. On closer look, one could see that someone had sprayed black paint on the un, as if to make the pair own up while at the same time absolving them. Another thoughtful graffiti sprayer had put back the un. And so the two gentlemen were pleading un-guilty once again.

Tourists roaming about at the square took turns posing for photographs beside the statues. Some even clambered up to sit on the lap of Papa Marx. One tourist picked the statue’s nose while his wife snapped a picture. Of course, I posed too. Eighteen years later my photo still looks good. I also have photos of myself writing graffiti on the wall.

Un-guilty or innocent of what?

With the collapse of communist governments in Europe and the reunification of the two Germanys, I couldn’t help thinking then that Marx and Engels must have been turning in their graves and their fans feeling low.

Now, 20 years later, as the world celebrates the fall of the wall, here comes a statement from the god/father of communism in the Philippines, Jose Ma. Sison, who is living in self-exile in Europe (not in North Korea). In paragraph after paragraph he perorates… “Since the fall of the Berlin wall…,” laying all the blame on capitalism and arguing why socialism is necessary. He is lamenting the fall of the wall and enumerating the ills in the world that came after it, practically pining for the Iron Curtain days.

If the wall could talk back… Let me say that I have kept the book that I bought at the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. It shows, through photographs and accounts, the ways and means that people in the communist-ruled East used to escape to freedom to the West during the Cold War.

Back to my reminiscing… At Checkpoint Charlie people sold chips of the old Berlin Wall. Our guide quipped that if someday all the chips that people bought were pieced together, the result would be a structure longer than the Great Wall of China. Where did all the chips come from? Your guess is as good as mine.

Berlin in 1991 was a study in contrast. To celebrate or not to celebrate—that was the debate. That was the first year after the reunification brought about by the crumbling of the wall that divided a people for decades. Curiously, the national official celebration was held in Hamburg at that time.

But the celebration in Berlin which we attended was held at the Rathaus. Beer and wine flowed. But there were also counter-celebrations. In front of the imposing Berlin Cathedral (on the East’s side), some 5,000 Berliners rallied. Almost without exception, every man or woman said he/she was for reunification, but always quickly added that it had been difficult. Prices of goods had soared and the daily earnings of the easterners had not gone up. East and West had been together only for a year.

The high cost of reunification was indeed daunting. In the East, we visited a factory that made lorries and street sweeping machines. A third or some 800 workers had been laid off. A top official of the factory, whose job it was to break the news gently to the employees, admitted his job was indeed a difficult one. A company from the West had bought the factory, and employees had to shape up or else. First to go were the incompetents who had it so good under their communist bosses.

Officials of the Treuhand-Ansalti (something like our Asset Privatization Trust), the agency in charge of privatizing companies in the East, had their hands full trying to dispose of them. It was not an easy job finding buyers of former state-owned firms whose products could not compete with those made in the West.

Indeed, there was unease on the first anniversary of Germany’s reunification. But there was a positive side to it in that the people realized early the cost that had to be paid. I couldn’t help thinking then, that in the second year after our own 1986 People Power Revolt, we were still discoing on the streets. On the third and fourth we were still in the clouds. The Germans were back to earth early.

Nineteen years after reunification, 20 years after the fall of the wall, look at them now.

As I rummaged through my Berlin photos and thingamajigs today, I found five Lenin pins that were the leftovers of the dozen or so that I bought in East Berlin for my nostalgic G&D (grim and determined) friends back home. Any takers? Maybe it’s time to sell them on e-Bay.

I hope to visit Germany again one day. One of the places I would like to visit (which many of my schoolmates have visited) would be that old little “castle” near Lake Starnberg in Bavaria where the German nuns of my alma mater came from, they who brought us the sound of the three Bs—Bach, Brahms and Beethoven.

Reflections on kidnappings past and present

Philippine Daily Inquirer/Opinion/by Ma. Ceres P.Doyo
AS IRISH COLUMBAN missionary Fr. Michael Sinnott enters his 24th day of captivity, people from all walks of life continue to pray that his kidnappers would have compassion and free him soon. That is, without ransom being paid. His kidnappers have asked for a $2-million ransom.

Fr. Pat O’Donoghue, regional director of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, has insisted again and again that Sinnott would not want that money be the reason for his release. The no-ransom policy stands.

As O’Donoghue stressed, paying ransom would “just add to everyone else’s vulnerability.” They are missionaries, “not commodities,” he added. For more than two decades these bandits/terrorists have been treating the religious as commodities.

The first kidnapping of religious that I had to write about involved the Carmelite nuns of Marawi City in 1986. I had to do a cover story on the kidnapping of the 10 nuns for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine at that time (“They also serve those who only pray,” July 20, 1986). That was 23 years ago.

In the recent “Reflections” or prayerful bulletins of O’Donoghue on Sinnott’s case, he mentioned that he officiated at the silver jubilee celebration of a Carmelite nun, Sr. Judith Luceno, one of the kidnapped nuns in 1986. The nuns in Marawi have since moved away and joined other Carmelite convents. What a pity.

But I remember that that Carmelite community was not like any other. Their lifestyle spoke of kinship with people of all faiths. I had not been there but I could tell they were different, based on my interviews with Carmelites in Metro Manila.

Set on a hill, the Carmelite “convent” in Marawi overlooked the placid Lanao Lake. On silent nights, the view from there, it was said, reminded one of Bethlehem. It must have been easy for the kidnappers to barge into the convent, a Carmelite whom I had interviewed said. Marawi Carmel was not the typical gothic monastery set apart by ivy-covered walls and iron grills. It was a poor Carmel, mostly made of wood. It was decidedly meant to be so.

The Carmelites came to Marawi to be one with everyone. They came not to convert, but to be witnesses to Muslim-Christian brotherhood—or sisterhood, if you may. They got along well with the people there. They were loved. The Muslims would even bring them food, I was told. It was therefore a surprise that a mass abduction should happen.

Mother Mary Madeleine (Mary Ledesma), prioress of Marawi Carmel at that time, was the moving spirit behind the little community of cloistered nuns whose lives consisted mainly of prayer, adoration, fasting and sacrifices, an apostolate which earthly mortals may not easily understand. But even as they preserved the original spirit of Carmel as inspired by St. Teresa of Avila (the founder of the Reformed Discalced Carmelite nuns and monks), their lifestyle in Marawi Carmel was very indigenized and not a copy of Western-style monastic life. (I’ve seen this kind of lifestyle in Carmel in Infanta, Quezon.)

During adoration, the nuns wore malong cloaks, they sang local songs, they adapted to the spirit of the place. They would even fast during Ramadan, in addition to the Carmelite fasts they had to undertake during the year.

They were not the modern-day Agneses of God (of the movies) or the flying nun types who knew little of birds and bees, or the age-old conflict in Mindanao. But little did they know that while in the middle of a nine-day novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, they would suddenly be swept into the eye of the storm.

As reports had it, they were forcibly taken from their convent, which was about two miles from the city, by armed men believed to be members of a lost command of the Moro National Liberation Front. Shortly after the nuns were kidnapped, an American Protestant missionary, Brian Lawrence, was also taken from his quarters at the Mindanao State University. The kidnapping came not too long after the release of the French Catholic priest, Fr. Michel Girord.

They were not to be the last. In the next two decades, there would be more kidnappings of church people, both religious and lay. Some of them resulted in gory deaths that told of extreme cruelty.

Today, many groups and individuals all over the world continue to pray for the safe return of Sinnott. There was a sense of relief when Sinnott’s kidnappers released a video showing him holding an Oct. 22 issue of the Inquirer. “There was a sense of relief to see him at all,” O’Donoghue said. “But I also experienced a tremendous sadness at seeing him in this horrendous situation. I would believe that all of us would know that he did not write the statement of his own volition. Words like ‘indignity of it all’, ‘humiliation’ and ‘exploitation’ sprang in my mind. But I also realized that he has not lost his gentleness which radiated through it all. God’s love is still flowing through him. I am aware that I could be accused of being melodramatic but the image stuck—ecce homo (behold the man). God is in this powerfully.”

O’Donoghue continued: “If the kidnappers were to look at the man they are holding and see him for who he is and not as a means for making money, and in compassion release him immediately, then we would remember them as men of compassion and not as kidnappers. One of the agencies in Rome asked me if I really thought these men were capable of compassion. It was an honest question that deserved an honest answer. I replied that if I were to answer simply from a human point of view, I would have to say, ‘Probably not.’ But I prefer to continue to see this from the horizon of faith. And from that perspective of what is impossible for us is possible for God. God can change hearts, despite our firm resistance.”