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.”