`Thief and dictator’

So sue me. I’ve been using the words dictator and tyrant for as long as I can remember.

``Mrs. Marcos wants the Department of Justice (DOJ) to rule that Ferdinand Marcos is not a dictator. She wants the (DOJ) to rule that Ferdinand Marcos is not a thief. Since Mrs. Marcos cannot change history, she wants the (DOJ) to do it for her.’’

This is want Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) commissioner Ruben Carranza, through his lawyers from Arroyo Chua Caedo Law Office, said in his scathing counter-affidavit after Imelda Marcos filed a libel suit against him and several journalists from a newspaper that published his statements.

Well, the DOJ did precisely that, Carranza’s lawyer William Chua said, when the DOJ through the Makati prosecutor’s office, charged Carranza et al with libel. An arrest order is to be expected, Chua added.

Last Sunday we came out with a news story on how calling deposed former president Ferdinand Marcos ``a thief and a dictator’’ could get you in trouble. The present government could charge you in court and have you arrested.

Party list representative Crispin Beltran promptly sent his reaction saying: ``Who’s afraid of libel and the Marcoses? Marcos was a thief, a dictator and a traitor to the Filipino people.’’

Beltran is saying, ``Try me.’’ So he goes: ``Thief, dictator, butcher of civilians, traitor to the Filipino people. If I had a wider and bigger vocabulary, I would be able to describe the late dictator Fedinand E. Marcos in more ways.



Beltran, a former political prisoner and labor leader, said the courts cannot go against Philippine history and deny the reasons why Marcos continues to be denounced as ``a plunderer and a dictator.’’ Eighteen years after his overthrow, Marcos victims are still waiting for justice, Beltran’s statement said. During commemorations for victims, the crimes of Marcos, his cronies, henchmen and heirs are constantly recalled and denounced, he added.

``We didn’t fear Marcos when he was still alive, we risked life and limb, why on earth should we be afraid of being sued for libel?

``Marcos cronies and his heirs including the incorrigible and shameless Imelda have yet to get their comeuppance. It’s appalling and outrageous that Imelda remains free to peddle her lies and illusions about her husband when together they plundered this country (and) all but destroyed the civil and human rights of the Filipino.

``Marcos was a thief, a butcher and a dictator, and no court in the land has the right to sanction or punish anyone who believes this and declares it publicly.’’

Makati Assistant City Prosecutor Carlos M. Flores, with the approval of city prosecutors Imelda Saulog and Feliciano Aspi, has filed libel charges against Carranza, Today editors Lourdes Molina-Fernandez and Dionisio Pelayo and reporter Estrella Torres.

Today publisher Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. who was originally included in the complaint filed by Marcos widow Imelda R. Marcos was not included in the resolution. Locsin is a Makati congressman. It’s the small fry who will fry, as far as the prosecutor is concerned. Recommended bail for each respondent is P10,000.

In an Aug. 26, 2003 article ``Marcoses hire Swiss lawyer to delay transfer of funds’’, Torres quoted Carranza as saying: ``You have a thief and a dictator, and here comes a lawyer (Foetish) saying they (referring to the Marcoses) have nothing to do with the Swiss money.’’

Wrote Torres: ``Swiss federal authorities have confirmed the existence of more substantial accounts of the estate of the late dictator Marcos besides the recovered US$683-million Swiss escrow funds now at the Philippine National Bank.’’

Said the imeldific in her complaint: ``The statements are very damaging to my husband’s memory… (it has) generated unjust contempt for my husband and my family, and has clearly blackened the memory of my late husband.’’

Prosecutor Flores upheld Mrs. Marcos’ complaint when he said ``Complainant, however, has correctly pointed out that the said respondent failed to present any evidence that Marcos was ever convicted as a thief and his innocence of the said charge stands until proven guilty in a court of law. Without such conviction, any reference to the late president as a thief may be considered malicious and therefore libelous.’’

Flores added that ``malice on the part of the journalists respondents is likewise presumed when they published the false statement of respondent Carranza.’’

But Carranza argued: ``The existence of the Marcos dictatorship is a matter of fact.’’ Therefore, references to Marcos as a thief and a dictator is not libelous.

Carranza added fuel by saying: ``The thievery that accompanied the imposition of martial is a matter of history. In fact, the enormity of the plunder landed Ferdinand Marcos in the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records as history’s greatest thief. Former senate president Jovito Salonga estimates the Marcos loot at around US$5 billion to US$10 billion. The PCGG itself has recovered some P25.534 billion from the sale of sequestered real property and shares…The government is still awaiting the privatization of another P30 billion or so of looted wealth.’’

Carranza stressed that the government that succeeded the Marcos regime was installed on the premise that Marcos ``stole the ballots intended for Corazon C. Aquino. Marcos not only looted the national treasury, he also stole the elections. That makes him a thief twice over….Various government bodies…acted on the postulate that the regime that Marcos imposed on the Philippines had been dictatorial and dishonest.’’

‘Kinse anyos’

Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse anyos? Have you tasted a 15-year-old?

Whoever crafted, produced and approved that ad for Distilleria Limtuaco’s Tanduay Rum cannot come clean and feign ignorance of the question’s double entendre. What’s in a question? Plenty.

The huge, unsightly and offensive Tanduay billboards asking that question have been taken down, or so we think, but the bad taste remains. Now the rum manufacturer is questioning the Ad Board’s authority to call for the bad ad’s removal from the face of the earth. But that is another story.

The bad story is: why that ad, for whom that ad? It was meant to titillate, to arouse the yearning for the 15-year-old liquid. And while at it, might as well intensify the thirst for two-legged 15-year-olds. Or it could be the other way around. Think of 15-year-old waifs, think Tanduay.

So the question suggests: if you have not tasted a kinse anyos, go taste one. Or if you have, and liked it, go and have more. The ad shows a bottle, which is easy to get from a convenience store. But where would one get the one which is not shown, the one which is not in a bottle?

The recent outcry over the gigantic billboards that now dominate the Philippine landscape has not been addressed. Or has it? Have you seen iron structures that hold billboards being dismantled? In fact there are more of them now waiting to be draped. It seems anyone who has a patch of earth or a rooftop can now offer his property to the billboard industry for extra income.

The issue was about unsightliness and defacing the horizon. Add danger because these iron structures get toppled during typhoon season. Now comes bad taste bordering on arousal of lust for children.

Before this outcry against Tanduay there was this huge billboard near the foot of the Nagtahan Bridge that was just as offensive, if not even more offensive. I saw it every time I came from the Inquirer in Makati and headed for home via the Nagtahan route toward Espana. It showed a young girl, about 15 or 16 perhaps, in a reclining position and with her legs sufficiently spread out. She had these big, pleading eyes looking up, and she had the fly of her jeans unzipped and wide open to show her skimpy panty and most of her pubic area. Lee™, it said. They sell jeans this way?

It was there for many months until Christmas and I kept wondering whether Manila mayor and Pro-lifer Lito Atienza ever saw it or whether the President did, every time she came from Malacanang and was headed north. It was so huge you couldn’t miss it if you were driving.

Billboards used to be made of galvanized iron sheets that were hand painted. Now billboards are made of plastic canvas that come out of giant printer machines. I once saw a team of workers preparing to hoist up a billboard ad. The canvas practically covered a whole street.

This reminded me of the artist (I think his name is spelled Kristo) who covered entire buildings and structures with canvas and then had them photographed. He certainly altered and mummified entire landscapes even if only for the duration of his outdoor exhibition. During the process he was making a statement while whole cities watched in awe and puzzlement.

Our advertising and billboard industries leave nothing for the imagination.

Speaking of kinse anyos, years ago I had to do a magazine story on a study done by psychiatrists on six- to 14-year-old street children who had been sexually used and abused. What were the children’s perceptions of their experiences?

I dug up the old article and found it still applicable in today’s context where lusting for children is part of the macho torture culture as evidenced by dead little girls found rotting in sacks or with bashed skulls and mutilated genitalia. Drugs often have something to do with these heinous crimes. And most likely, rum too. And bad advertising..

The so-called children of the streets (where, may I stress, all these deadly billboard ads could be seen) have a language all their own. Their vocabulary and conversations are not quite like what one heard if one grew up chasing dragonflies with well-scrubbed kids who smelled of soap in the morning.

``Malaki kasi laging nilalaro, (They’re big because they were always being fondled)’’ said a little girl of her friend, a fellow ten-year-old, whose breasts were bigger than what pre-teeners had. The declaration sounded almost too casual. These were little girls exchanging notes on adult things.

``Malaki kasi…’’ was not foul language, it was one mean declaration that one knew ``what it’s all about.’’ Like being forced to drink urine or being beaten up during sexual play, or learning new words describing what it’s all about. Like dyug-dyug.

In the study, the psychiatrists classified the children’s reaction to the sexual abuse. Some children were able to make an integration of the event, meaning they have overcome the anxiety, they neither avoided nor encouraged discussion but were able to talk about the experience fairly objectively.

Others avoided the topic, sealing off their anxiety either consciously or unconsciously. They denied the happening and avoided discussion. There was depression and self-destruction. Some children suffered continuous repetitions of these symptoms. Still others identified with their exploiters by impersonating them, a way for them to deal with their anxiety.

It is all very complex. Go to a shelter for sexually abused children and you’d get some idea where the culture of lust and abuse is coming from.

Consumers should scrutinize their brands. By their ads you shall know them.

Passenger 51

I shudder as I imagine Passenger 51 moments before the ill-fated SuperFerry 14 caught fire last week off the coast of Bataan. Did he or didn’t he?

With unconcealed delight, Abu Sayyaf chief Khadaffy Janjalani announced a few days ago that his terror group, with the special participation of Passenger 51, had caused the tragedy that killed and injured more than a hundred people and left countless traumatized and bereaved. The ship, carrying 879 passengers and crew, had just left Manila on the night of Feb. 26 and was cruising Manila Bay when tragedy struck. Among the 134 still mysteriously missing are scores of high school students who had just attended a national conference in Laguna and were returning to Mindanao. The ship, though keeled to the side, did not go down. Yet only one dead body has so far been found.

Passenger 51, bearer of ticket number 24633972, was to be credited for this latest sea mishap, Janjalani crowed, and he could prove it. Passenger 51 was their own, and he had fulfilled his duty. Government investigators were quick to pooh-pooh this owning up, insisting that there was no proof of an explosion. The disaster was an accident or it could have been human error that brought that about. Any prankster could claim authorship and ride on the tragedy as a ticket to infamy.

But Janjalani waved the smoking gun. Passenger 51, the suicide bomber, Janjalani said, was Arnulfo Alvarado whose real name was Abu Muadz, a native of Pata Island in Sulu. The Abu Sayyaf chief continued to give details of those moments before Passenger 51 sealed the fate of scores of innocents including his own. Oh, but might he still be alive?

At first only Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Soliman made the announcement. Was he for real? ``We did it!’’ the Inquirer quoted him as saying. Sure, the claim could have come from the terrorists, Pres. Macapagal-Arroyo said, but only as an afterthought.



Then Janjalani emerged to bolster the claim by confirming the participation of Passenger 51 himself. Yes, he said, they plotted it, knew the details of it. And now they are reveling in it even as hundreds of families weep for the missing and the dead.

The ship owners had confirmed last year that they had received threats from the Abu Sayyaf. Janjalani said their warning letters had something to do with ``the use of our seas, taxes.’’

And so it was that Passenger 51 had to take on the task of making the threat good, for whatever purpose it may serve now. Janjalani even described the physical set up inside SuperFerry 14--from the escalator, to the deck, to the Blue Room where Passenger 51 was supposed to have placed the explosive. The two spoke to each other by cell phone. ``I’m embracing it,’’ Passenger 51 said to him, probably referring to the bomb. He was ready to go, he added. To go to heaven as a martyr.

Passenger 51, Janjalani boasted, had gone through a rigorous ``spiritual course’’ called the Amaliya Istishhadiya meant for a few volunteers seeking martyrdom.

The Abu Sayyaf claim about Passenger 51 may be true or it may all be a boast. But claiming something that has brought anguish and trauma to hundreds of innocent individuals and families, even if it was not actually the claimants’ handiwork, is almost tantamount to having done it themselves. The gleeful admission, the triumphant announcement are blood-curdling. How can one punish the innocent and claim reward in heaven?

I wish self-respecting Muslims would raise their voices to denounce the use of Islamic jargon in the terrorists’ justification of this latest attack on human beings. Do they also believe that this kind of ``martyrdom’’ is a sure way to heaven? No, I don’t think so.

The Feb. 23 issue of Newsweek carries Joanna Chen’s interview with Thauria Hamur, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman who was supposed to carry out a suicide bombing mission in Jerusalem in May 2002. Hamur was captured by Israeli forces shortly before she was going to set off the explosion. She is now in prison, serving out a six-year sentence.

When asked to pinpoint the moment she decided to volunteer for the mission, Hamur said she could give many examples of the killing of Palestinian children. Her own cousin, she said, was killed by Israeli soldiers.

Men are promised they’ll become martyrs in paradise, so what was Hamur, promised? Chen asked. Hamur answered: ``According to the Qur’an, God promised the martyrs a reward of 70 virgins, and those who die a martyr’s death will be kept alive and sustained by God. Women martyrs are promised they will become the purest and most beautiful form of angel at the highest level possible in heaven.’’

The training to explode the backpack took only half an hour, Hamur disclosed. There was a button she was supposed to push when she got into a crowded place. ``It was a pizza restaurant…I decided to go and blow myself up in the evening hours, when people were going back home from work and there would be a big crowd of people around the target area.’’

But then Hamur was captured. But she isn’t sorry. She would do it again, if she could. ``I don’t have anything against Israeli children, but I know that there is a possibility that this Israeli child will grow up and come to kill my son or my neighbor’s son. Therefore, I think he should be dead now.’’

The vicious cycle of hate, revenge and violence continues.

*****

Bantayog ng mga Bayani, QC. Every last Saturday of the month, in the afternoon, families and friends of martyrs and heroes listed on the Wall of Remembrance who died or were born in the current month, are invited to gather, light candles, offer flowers and exchange memories in an atmosphere of peace and joy. Call 4361769 for details.

Oratio imperata

Ora pro nobis. Kyrie eleison. Kaawaan mo kami. Malooy ka sa amon. Kahiraki kami. In times of pestilence and impending calamities, famine and drought, disease and danger, the Catholic Church of yore called on the faithful to collectively go down on their knees to implore God to intervene.

Oratio imperata means obligatory prayer. In those days, this was the church’s weapon and shield against the destructive forces that roamed the land and threatened the security of the people. It still is. This phrase in the extinct language of Latin is coming to life again and is being used to exhort the people to cry out to the heavens.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recently called for oratio imperata. In the bishops’ perception, this country is headed for the edge.

Oratio imperata. I like the archaic sound of it. Trumpets wail and pipe organs roar. The ramparts shake and rattle. Imperata sounds very imperative and urgent, something must be in such grave peril that it needs the prayers of the entire nation. Evil is abroad in the land.

It reminds me of the yearly ``Ora et Labora’’ pageant in the German-style Benedictine-run school where I studied. Barbarians overrun parts of Europe during the Dark Ages. Then Benedict of Nursia emerges to throw light and help dispel the darkness. A new day dawns, thanks in part to the wise and wizened monks whose powerhouses of prayer, fields for sustainable agriculture and archives of knowledge help save Europe from spiritual and cultural devastation. Perfect era for oratio imperata.

Now, where was I?



``Oratio imperata for the National Elections 2004’’ is what the CBCP is asking church goers to recite and take to heart beginning yesterday, Ash Wednesday (which marks the beginning of Lent) and until the elections in May. The prayer is to be recited in unison toward the end of the mass on Sundays and every day during the entire week before election day.

There are many ways to pray--from wordless to wordy, silent to loud; by singing or reciting. There are those who prefer to go wordless, thought-less. But oral prayers take on a special meaning when people let out a collective cry for a common cause or of thanksgiving and praise. It is like making an open declaration to the heavens and to one other.

The ``Oratio Imperata for the National Elections’’ was prepared by the Episcopal Commission on Liturgy. It is bland and dry, if you ask me. It pleads that the Filipino electorate be infused with love of country and genuine concern for the future. It asks for capable and upright leaders who will lead the country to moral renewal and lasting stability and peace.

I hope God listens, and the people concerned too.

One need not believe in prayer and praying in order to see that this latest oratio imperata serves a purpose even just as a credo for concerned citizens and voters.

Last year, when SARS threatened Asia, oratio imperata was asked of the people. Looks like this is being done too often, which means that crisis is stalking the land too often.

I read this latest oratio imperata in both English and Filipino, and while it says a lot about what should be wished for this benighted country, and is quite broad and inclusive, it lacks fervor and oomph. It sounds like a legal treatise minus the and/ors and aforementioneds. The Filipino version sounds a lot better. Sorry, but it’s composers should learn from the music in the language of the psalms. Still, this does not mean that it is less of a prayer. Oratio imperata, it is indeed. Excerpts:

``At this difficult crossroads of our national elections, we beg you to be with us with the light of the Holy Spirit, so that the electorate, well informed about the candidates and inspired by the love of country and genuine concern for its future, may cast their votes responsibly according to their consciences. Give us the courage that comes from the power of the Holy Sprit, that against all forms of violence coercion, coup attempts and anarchy, we may uphold the constitutional process and the rule of law.

``Make all the citizens vigilant with the watchfulness of the Holy Spirit, that the campaign period, electoral exercise and counting of ballots may be marked by honesty, order, transparency and true freedom. Lord, protect with the tender yet mighty care of the Holy Spirit all the candidates with their families, political allies and followers, shield from all harm the concerned citizens who are involved in political education, scrutiny of candidates and poll watching…’’ Enough.

In contrast, the language of the bible drips with poetry and is awash in music. Listen to how Jesus cries out in the New Testament: ``Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I wanted to gather you under my wings and you would not let me…’’ (I hope I got that right.) Feel the rhythm and the cadence. Consummatum est. In Hebrew, Latin or English, Christ’s last words tremble with finality. Read Revelations and catch the fire and the brimstone. Dive into the Old Testament and be aroused by the Song of Songs. Quake as you read Jeremiah’s warning about the enemy at the gates. (Great fodder for oratio imperata 2004.)

Jesus must have been a poet, for where would the bumbling apostles-turned-writers have caught that spark that are in their written works?

God could have been waxing about Filipinas, patria adorada, as Hosea wrote ``I will lure her once more into the desert, where I can speak to her tenderly. Then I will give back her vineyards, make the Valley of Achor a gateway of hope. There she will answer me yes as in her youth.’’

'Riles'

I could not make it to the big-screen special viewing at the mall last Sunday so the director lent me a copy in VHS (she wouldn’t part with the DVD) that I could watch at home. But she gave me instructions in a pleading tone. I was to watch her latest film opus with no distractions, preferably in a dimly lighted room, on a big TV screen.

I followed her instructions. I went through the motion of detaching the wires from the DVD and connecting them to the VHS machine and testing if I found the right holes and the sound was right and I had the right remote with the right batteries. My, this took a while. When I was done, I freshened up.

I don’t have a mini-theater, but I guess my clean and spartan room meets the specifications for viewing. What was all this ambiance-preparation supposed to achieve, I wondered. So there I was, in my cool and darkened place smelling of fresh sheets and brewed coffee, ready to behold the unfolding of Ditsi Carolino’s ``Riles: Life on the Tracks’’.

The opening scene jars and assaults immediately. A train roars past a squatter community living dangerously close to the railroad tracks in Sampaloc, Manila. Here is a world so unlike the one where I’m sitting. Cacophonous, foul-smelling, filthy, dangerous, degrading, deprived, rat-infested, unfit for human habitation. This is ``home along da riles’’, no, not of TV sitcom fame. This one is true-to-life, the characters real, the misery real, the hope real but undying. Cinema verite with clenched teeth, and yes, with a dash of Pinoy humor.

The docu (in vivid color, in Filipino with English subtitles) has no narrator. It unravels by itself. The people don’t act and talk to the camera. They are their natural selves. This is as real as it gets.

At the center of the documentary is the Renomeron family--couple Eddie and Pen Renomeron and their two kids plus three adopted ones whose parents were crushed by a train. For them and the riles community, the railroad tracks is a playground, a free zone for all until those brief moments many times a day when the almighty train slices through, rattling homes and sending everyone scampering to the sides for safety.

Just as quickly as the train rumbles past, the people from both sides of the tracks reclaim their middle-space, their center. Life and livelihood thrive not just beside the tracks but right on them. For example, the enterprising have fashioned home-made modes of transport mounted on the tracks. There people do their chores and test their creativity. There women socialize and men gamble.

The family of Eddie and Pen could barely survive. Eddie sells balut at night, while Pen, with one breast lost to cancer (she cleans her scars while on cam), works as a day maid here and there. One gets intimate with the Renomeron family as they go about from sun-up to sundown and till the dead of night. One listens in to the petty quarrels, the meal conversations, the rough language, their thinking aloud, punctuated every so often by the sound of the passing train.

How do they get by, how do they survive on so little, how do they earn, cook, eat, bathe, fight, show love? How do they view life?

Carolino’s camera does not follow the Renomerons alone. One gets to know the family better by getting to know characters in the neighborhood. One can see how prolifically they procreate. And how unabashedly they recreate. Next to television, the videoke is the most wondrous invention that has visited this community. Teenage girls dreaming of becoming entertainers in Japan, shirtless men with trembling bellies—they all have their turn with the microphone and croon to the moon. Music is the opium and aphrodisiac.

Parts of the documentary must have been shot during the 2001 election season because it shows candidates (Solita Monsod, among them) visiting the place to pump hands and win hearts. Elections have come and gone, the people complain, and there has been no improvement in their lives.

Proof is the home of the Renomeron family that would be demolished. The landlord, himself a railroad dweller, announces this rather imperiously. The day comes and the family packs their belongings as the demolition crew begins wrecking. It is heartbreaking to see them leave for another rat-infested hole.

In this portion, Carolino’s camera does not solicit sentimentality, it captures details and nuances but it moves in a stoic way, leaving the viewer to either feel or think or both.

Many of us see riles communities only from the window of our passing vehicles when we cross the tracks and look left and right. When we see an oncoming train we step on the gas and speed away.

For a year, as a college junior, I spent two hours every Saturday afternoon in a squatter area beside the tracks along South Superhighway. This was part of the ``do-it’’ component of our theology courses. St. Scho was tough. As freshmen and sophomore brats, we taught the blind and the poor kids in order to give balance to our academics and get our feet soiled.

That place by the riles is still the slums but it is now referred to as ``Dasmariles’’ because not far away is the posh Dasmarinas Village. I remember a wiry woman there named Aling Asang and I have kept the photo I took of the riles kids.

I had watched and reviewed with raves Carolino’s first major documentary, the award-winning black-and-white ``Minsan Lang Sila Bata’’ which was about child labor and abuse. Duplicating that feat must have been a challenge for Carolino.

But ``Riles’’ (70 minutes) has also earned praise here and abroad and won as best docu-film in Cinemanila International Film Festival in 2003. ``Riles’’ has the same Carolino touch. It is called soul.

Agent Orange: Time-delayed violence

News from Agence France Presse (AFP) datelined Hanoi that was prominently bannered in the Inquirer a few days ago said: ``Three Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange have begun legal action against manufacturers of the defoliant used by US forces during the Vietnam war, a move analysts say was inevitable given Washington’s failure to atone for its use.’’

The photo that went with the story was that of a cheering Thai Thi Ha, 13, his arms raised, during a fund-raising meeting for Agent Orange victims. All over the boy’s arms and face were black spots that made him look like he had been sprayed with mud. But mud it was not. This child was among the many children born long after the Vietnam war (1961-1975) was over and who bear the scars of that shameful era. To these children have been passed on the effects of the toxin that their parents had ingested. Who knows how far down the line of generations the poison would go to maim and scar the innocents?

Last Jan. 30 the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange filed a lawsuit on behalf of the victims at the US Federal Court in New York. Named were more than 20 American companies that produced Agent Orange, among them Dow Chemical Co. and Monsanto Co. Yes, Monsanto, the manufacturer or GMOs (genetically modified organisms). These two giants have been on the dock before for other products that have been cause for worry for inhabitants of this planet.

For ten years, from 1961 to 1971, the US and their ally, the South Vietnamese military, sprayed millions of liters of toxic herbicides, among them, Agent Orange, over parts of Vietnam to destroy the foliage that covered their enemy, the communist forces. This defoliation not only affected the target areas and their population, but also those handling and spraying the defoliants.

The defoliant’s deadly component was dioxin which increases the risk of cancers, immune deficiencies, reproductive and developmental aberrations, nerve diseases and other physical defects.



US veterans have raised their voices for so long, but little was known about their Vietnamese counterparts, the women and the non-combatants especially.

I have two books that tackle Agent Orange and its effects on families, ``Agent Orange: Impact of Chemical Warfare on the Reproductive Rights of Women and Men in Vietnam’’ (2000) and ``Common Grounds: Violence Against Women in War and Conflict Situations’’ (1998) published by the Asian Centre of Women Human Rights (ASCENT) and the Research Centre for Gender, Family and Environment in Development (CGFED). Both books were published in the Philippines.

``Agent Orange’’ features 30 case studies of dioxin-exposed families. It uses photos (shot by Filipino photographer Jimmy Domingo) and, more importantly, a ``reproductive family history line’’ for each family to illustrate at what point Agent Orange figured. The research, headed by Professor Le Thi Nham Tuyet of CGFED, covered four areas in Vietnam.

The book quotes former US president Bill Clinton as saying in 1996: ``For over two decades, Vietnam veterans made the case that exposure to Agent Orange was injuring and killing them long before they left the field of battle, even damaging their children.’’ That was a pitch for the US Vietvets.

In ``Common Grounds’’ lecturer and writer Reiko Watanuki writes about the reproductive health of Vietnamese women and how dioxin damaged their life-giving potential. She cites a government report that says 19 million gallons of chemical weapons containing 170 kilograms of dioxin were used in over 3.6 million hectares of forests and rural villages in southern Vietnam. This makes Vietnam the world’s largest dioxin-polluted area. Dioxin is a typical endocrine-disrupting chemical, Watanuki said. She describes it as ``time-delayed violence.’’

Watanuko decries the fact that US government documents and even the new book ``Our Stolen Future’’ does not mention Vietnamese women. ``In the book,’’ Watanuko said, ``Vietnam should have been presented as the most significant area in which the silent accusations from the yet-to-be-born future generation are made.’’ Only the American soldiers who fought in the war were referred to, she complained.

As late as 1993, Watanuko said, The National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. was still feigning ignorance of the damage to the reproductive health of women. The harm to women has been practically ignored by the International Dioxin Conference. And yet this issue was first presented as early as 1970 at a conference in France. Professor Ton That Tung of Hanoi University said then: ``Vietnamese women are suffering from abnormal pregnancies and frequently giving birth to babies with congenital defects as a result of poisoning by dioxin contained in herbicides.’’

Defoliation operations ceased in 1971 but ten years of dioxin bombardment left a legacy of diseased and deformed human beings.

The Vietnamese government has never formally asked for compensation on behalf of the Vietnamese, but at it has stated that the U.S. has the humanitarian responsibility to help heal the wounds of war. Two years ago Vietnam and the U.S. signed an agreement for more research on the impact of the defoliants.

The suit should hasten this research. But a lot has already been done by advocacy groups. Chuck Searcy, an American aid worker in Vietnam, told AFP that ``despite the US government saying there is no scientific evidence proving the impact of Agent Orange to human health here, the evidence seems pretty overwhelming.’’

The war is long over, but Agent Orange and its ``time-delayed violence’’ continues to wreak havoc.

The MJ’s leap of faith

``Commitment,’’ the homilist said, ``is not staying in a place from which you cannot leave. It is letting go and holding on to a new call. The important thing is not that one spends a whole life doing something, but what one does with one’s whole life and how one does it. Commitment is the fine art of waiting for a thing to become for us what we thought a long time ago it was--makers of our history and partners in God’s mission. Fr. Joe, this was your dream and the dream of your MJ brothers.’’

That was Father Percy Juan MJ, noted missiologist, speaking during the mass at the wake of Fr. Jose Saplala MJ at St. Scholastica’s College chapel last Sunday. Fr.Joe, 68, died of cancer on Jan. 31. He was buried yesterday after a glorious farewell from kith and kin.

I had plans of writing about the MJ (Missionaries of Jesus) sometime back but I was waiting for the right time. Perhaps now is the time.

The MJ is a group of priest-missionaries (38 Filipinos, two Belgians and one American) that broke away in 2002 from the Belgian-founded CICM (Congregation of the Immmaculate Heart of Mary). The early Belgian missionaries here served the people of the Cordillera, spoke their language and lived among them. The CICM now run huge institutions such as Maryhill School of Theology and St. Louis University.

Those who broke away are among the best and the brightest and the most committed to mission. Father Joe, the first Filipino CICM, and the young-ish Father Percy Juan, former Father Provincial, were among them. This was a split that was bound to happen. East clashes with West, new wine tearing at old wineskins, and the idea of ``doing mission’’ no longer the same for everyone. Ad gentes as against ad extra. The former implies bridging the gap between faith and unbelief and being engaged in intercultural dialogue of life; the latter implies a geographical crossing over sort of.



It was a painful act of breaking free. Bloody and bloodied are understatements. It was a leap of faith on the part of those who chose the path less taken, a leap in the dark for only the brave. Yes, it is, when you sally forth with only the clothes on the your back and your shadow no longer allowed to darken the portals of what used to be your home, the cradle of your missionary vocation. That is not a figure of speech.

I have read the accounts describing what led to this—what happened at the congregation’s General Chapter in Rome, the exchange of letters, the hurling of accusations. Filipinos are ``power grabbers.’’ Wow. Why, a number of international congregations, European-founded at that, already have had Filipinos or Asians as either Superior Generals or members of the General Council. Magaling ang Pinoy.

I have also read the proposal to establish a second CICM Province in the Philippines—an offshoot of that debacle. Those who proposed this had hoped it would ``foster a positive tolerance for diversity…(and) allow for attempts to live and do mission differently and in a manner close to the Filipino mind and heart, integrated in the people’s way of life.’’ This would have eased the conflict.

Alas, this was not to be. And so on June 12, 2002, anniversary of Philippine independence and birth anniversary of the CICM founder Theophile Verbist, the parting of ways became complete.

The breakaway group chose Father Wilfredo Dulay, himself a gritty warrior, to be Coordinator General. The MJ is now under the benevolent protection of Archbishop Fernando Capalla, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Former CBCP head and canon lawyer Archbishop Oscar Cruz acts as MJ adviser.

It will take a while for the MJ, some of whom have logged 30 to 48 years as CICM priest-missionaries, to get pontifical status but this didn’t deter this band of brothers from breaking new ground and wading into new frontiers. A saint is not less a saint just because she or he is not yet canonized by the Vatican.

Religious congregations splitting in half is not new. The matter of division of resources and granting of benefits often add to the pain. Profit-oriented business corporations do better by their employees.

But that is not even the core issue. (Hey, it’s a labor issue.) Fr. Dulay described the issue thus: ``From the very beginning the congregational charism rested on two foundational pillars: mission ad gentes and mission to the poor... Has its actual practice deviated from the founding charism by devoting itself to pastoral work ad extra (attending to the pastoral care of Christians outside one’s own country) but neglecting mission ad gentes, which is the theological heart of mission: the good news must be proclaimed to all nations?’’

The ``rebels’’ had brought up the issue that 75 percent of the CICM missionaries around the world were taking care of Christians mostly and not leaving their comfort zones.

My two cents worth: I think ``jurassic’’ religious life, if it does not remain true to it mission and keep pace with the world, if it neglects contemplative prayer, will die out. New forms (lay communities perhaps?) will take its place.

Some years ago I wrote an investigative series on European congregations, on the verge of becoming extinct, doing massive vocation recruitment among little-educated Asians who would care for their aged. This alarmed our Bureau of Immigration. Europe is drying up. As someone said, ``The last surviving one will turn off the lights.’’

``MJ’’ was on the lips of Fr. Joe till the end. Some of his last words: ``By the grace of God, little by little, I began to understand the will of God. I began to understand what life is all about.’’