Post-traumatic stress disorder

For those involved in the rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations in the aftermath of the recent series of disasters here and abroad, the realization that the problem is more than material and economic could be daunting. The psychological trauma of survivors could be paralyzing and the effects could be long-lasting if these are not addressed immediately and properly.

The recent killer landslides in our own home ground and the post-Christmas tsunami that killed more than 165,000 people in 11 countries and left millions bereaved and bereft have to mean something and result in something. Otherwise, is it all despair?

Last Monday we wrote about the experiences of a team of clinical psychologists who fanned out to several disaster areas in the aftermath of the 1990 earthquake, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo and 1993 Mayon Volcano eruptions. The team, called HEART (Holistic and Empathetic Approach to Rehabilitation and Training), was composed of Ateneo University masteral and doctoral psychology students led by Dr. Ma. Lourdes A. Carandang, a seasoned clinical psychologist, researcher and author. The effort was funded by Unicef.

One of the fruits of their experiences was the book ``Pakikipagkapwa-Damdamin: Accompanying Survivors of Disasters’’ (Bookmark, 1996). The book is now being updated and redesigned for reprinting. It is a rich source of insights and methodology for those helping survivors to cope with their trauma and find meaning in what is left of their lives. Empowering them is even more daunting. Note that I avoid using the word victim.

That tongue-twister in the title means empathy and more. If sympathy is pakikiramay, empathy goes farther and deeper.



As a journalist who uses words as a medium and as one who had trained in clinical psychology and worked with the breaking and the broken once upon a time, I could not help but note the therapeutic power of words and story-telling. Naming the pain, saying and sharing one’s pain, beholding the pain of others—these could be the beginning of healing.

For post-disaster rescuers and caregivers who must wade into the ocean of human sorrow and who might feel overwhelmed, bewildered and clueless, the book offers not only how-tos but comfort as well. Arellano’s book also deals with the burden and burnout of the caregivers.

This ``Diagnostic Critera for Post Traumatic Disorder’’ crafted by psychologists and psychiatrists (and by the HEART team) could equip those out there in dealing with the pain of survivors as well as there own.

A. the person has experienced an event that is outside the range of usual human experience and that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone, that is, serious threat to one’s life or physical integrity; serious threat or harm to one’s children, spouse, or other close relatives and friends; sudden destruction of one’s home or community; or seeing another person who has recently been or was being seriously injured or killed as the result of an accident or physical violence.

B. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:

1. the recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event (in young children, repetitive play in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed)
2. recurrent distressing dreams of the event
3. sudden acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (including a sense of reliving the experience, illusions hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, even those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated)
4. intense psychological distress at exposure to events that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event, including anniversaries of the trauma

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma or numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following

1. efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma
2. efforts to avoid activities or situations that arouse recollections of the trauma
3. inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma (psychogenic amnesia)
4. markedly diminished interest in significant activities in young children, loss of recently acquired developmental skills such as toilet training or language skills
5. feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
6. restricted range of affect, that is, being unable to have loving feelings
7. sense of a foreshortened future, that is, does not expect to have a career, marriage, or children, or a long life

D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma) as indicated by at least two of the following

1. difficulty falling asleep
2. irritability or outbursts of anger
3. difficulty concentrating
4. hypervigilance
5. exaggerated startle response
6. physiological reactivity upon exposure to events that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event (for example, a woman who was raped in an elevator breaks out in sweat when entering any elevator)

E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C and D) of at least one month.

Note: sometimes the onset of these symptoms could be delayed.

****

May I say again that there are websites that accept ``tsunami donations’’ via credit card, among them, www.unicef.org, www.ifrc.org and www.catholicrelief.org. Some people I know who are not internet-literate sent money and asked me to do it for them. I was touched. Unicef instantly issues a receipt in the donor’s name via the card holder’s email.

Now please do it yourself.

Anti-corruption ribbons, badges

A few weeks ago we were high on the list of the world’s happiest people. This week’s news says we are number 2 on Asia’s graft and corruption list. Are we happy because we are corrupt or are we corrupt because we are happy? Okay, just kidding.

Gusto mong magkapera? (Do you want to make money?) My friend’s boss called my friend to his office one day to ask her that. My friend was working in a government agency/commission that was tasked to improve the lives of many and make people live in peace and harmony.

Easy, the boss told my friend who had spent many years in NGO work before she moved to the government to try it out. (She had since left.) Receipts were the secret. That’s not really a secret, is it?

My friend was so stunned. What came out of her mouth was a polite, ``No, sir, my husband makes enough for all our needs.’’

Why did you give that kind of excuse or reason? I asked. She could have given a better one. My point was: having enough money or being independently rich is not a reason for not stealing. Or that low pay is a justification for being corrupt. Why, some of the most rapacious and greedy already have so much to begin with. Stealing people’s money is simply wrong any way you look at it.



My friend said she was so shocked that was all she could say. Well, it must have been like meeting a flasher in a darkened alley, if you know what I mean. By the way, when confronted by one don’t charge or, worse, run away. That is what gives the exhibitionist gratification. Say something that will make the coward slink away with inferiority. Like, you’re not interested, then stare him down. They’re generally harmless, these types. But not the exhibitionists who wear their loot in so many subtle and vulgar ways.

That friend of mine, rather known for her colorful language, could only say so much at that time. No, thank you.

And how would she have made money? Well, it was not even big-time, like, on multi-million contracts. But there was something to be had in supplies, events and out-of-town trips and seminars in, uhm, nice places. Arrggh, the never-ending seminars.

What really disgusted me was the fact that the agency/commission where she worked was tasked to alleviate the plight of the poor and the neglected. Oh my God, I thought, all that money that was poured in there does not entirely go to the beneficiaries after all. So much goes to the perks of the bureaucracy and, worse, some of it goes to ghost expenses. There’s just so much people’s money wasted.

Always, anti-corruption advocates point to the big fish who take home the big loot and scandalize their subordinates. The corruption landscape is easy to picture, the solution easier said than done. Clean up the top and the bottom will follow?

A good number of squeaky-clean top-level government bureaucrats had come and gone but the graft-ridden bureaucracy lives on. There is a lot going on in the middle-level which is hard to shake down.

But, of course, there were big ones who stole in a grand way—the big-time plunderers who will never get to feel what it’s like to be strapped to the gurney like that rapist whom I watched die by lethal injection. But while there is great sense in keeping an eye on the big bosses, it would also be good to work on the small fry who know the nuts and bolts and who will themselves go up the ladder.

So why not try it the other way around? The small fry should give a good example to the bosses. If they are well-organized, if they know they have the support of the people they serve, if they realize they can’t get away with robbery and theft because their peers are watching, this sector in the bureaucracy might be able to set the standard for their bosses.

We focus so much on the individuals and we really feast on the big ones who get caught red-handed. We could even feel sorry for the ``smaller’’ ones who stole just a few grands but went to prison. But bigger than all of these corrupt big and small individuals combined is the culture of corruption that thrives. It is like a slimy body of water that gives life to vermin and a host of harmful organisms. That water has to be flushed out or changed.

Do I sound like a Girl Scout? Well, I was a Girl Scout. My badge was a badge of honor. And one of the things that I remember, aside from ``Be prepared’’ is ``Do a good turn daily.’’ I believed with my small heart that the world could be better if each one did that. There are good things we will always remember.

And so why don’t we make people always remember? Is there something that would remind those who work in the government and for the people that they are to be trusted, that they are to be honest? That we look to them to erase the curse of pangungurakot?

What about ribbons and stickers and badges and buttons? There is a ribbon color for every movement—purple for women against violence, red for AIDS, etc.

Some people might find wearing anti-corruption thingamajigs a very self-righteous, holier-than-thou practice. I say, the corrupt strut about in signature clothes and ride away to the sunrise in their SUVs, while the upright must hide in humility? The latter is false humility that embolden the hardened sticky-fingers.

Incidentally, a group of Cebu NGOs came up with a booklet titled ``Homily Guide on Corruption’’ which priests and preachers could use. Great. Surely many corrupt officials are also church-goers.

TV discombobulation

The Inquirer’s editorial two days ago dwelled on Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon ``Dinky’’ Soliman’s warning to parents that excess television viewing by children could stunt their creativity and skills.

Nakakabobo. (It dumbs.) It numbs. Too much TV affects reading skills and seriously inhibits left-brain functions needed for oral and verbal activities. The right brain becomes more dominant and thus makes zombies of TV addicts. That may sound like an exaggeration but try parking yourself in front of the TV the whole day for no urgent reason (urgent would be the stimulating 9/11 or the tsunami updates) and your brain just leaves you. The packs of junk food also vanishes in front of you.

Compare this with reading which makes your mind active and your imagination fly. Compare this with activities such as designing, problem-solving or writing. Writing may be a solitary activity but it does not bring on the loneliness of the long-distance runner. The writer is not really alone. There is a whole caboodle of characters that are alive, ideas and stories playing themselves out in the writer’s brain. And then the images in the landscape of the mind translates into words and these words go to one’s fingers and to the computer screen and finally to the printed page. Later, to be absorbed by other minds.



Of course, there is a time to turn it all off, to go to the garden and coax the plants to grow or eat good food and sip coffee with friends.

Television may look like it has everything. For many, it is their daily source of daily information. Indeed television contains a lot, but what kind of information and how much of it is truly information?

Some years ago I wrote about something I had read in a book(I didn’t get it from TV) which was about the information that we are missing out. I want to share this again.

When many people in this world thought we were having a surfeit of information, information gatherers, information providers, information managers and what-have-you, and we were up to here with the electronic media, one writer set out to find out what exactly was happening outside and inside of him in the context of all this information tsunami.

Bill MacKibben did this and the result of his extraordinary effort was the book ``The Age of Missing Information.’’ (He also wrote the celebrated ``The End of Nature’’.)

One day, McKibben sat in front of his TV to find an answer to the question, ``Does having access to more information than ever mean that we know more than ever?’’ McKibben watched a single day’s TV programs on all 93 cable stations in Fairfax, Virginia. He taped some 2,000 hours of shows and then watched them all.

MacKibben chose Fairfax because of the astounding size of the cable system there: five Christian channels, four for shopping, two for country music video, one for plane arrivals and departures. A cable magazine listed nearly 1,000 movies per month. There were two comedy channels, nine public access and government channels, two for weather, one for sports, name it.

``On a single day,’’ wrote McKibben, ``you can hear about virtually every topic on earth.’’ He watched ``endless newscasts and hyperactive game shows, bizarre sporting events, infomercials for devices with unknown uses, helpful hints for bass fishermen, cheetahs dispatching zebras, evangelists begging for dollars, and more episodes of `The Brady Bunch’ than a sane man could bear.’’

To discover what was missing in what he saw on TV, McKibben spent 24 hours—only 24—on top of an Adirondack mountain. He watched insects and vultures, climbed trees, even swam in an ice cold pond. And he listened.

There, on that mountaintop, McKibben discovered many things about himself and the world around him. He was able to gather information that was not offered by the boob tube.

McKibben’s expedition was not that of a dabbler or dilettante who had nothing better to do. In ``The Age of Missing Informtion’’ he seriously and with great humor, dissects the information in those 2,000 hours of videotape. His observations are both hilarious and sobering. And he also writes so very well.

But it is the mountaintop lessons that are timeless and precious. ``The idea of standing under the stars and feeling how small you are—that’s not a television idea. Everything on television tells you the opposite—you’re the most important person, that people are all that matter. ``We do it all for you’; `Have it your way’, the immortal `This Bud’s for you’. The endless parade of jesters to entertain you, the obsequious newscasts that bring the story to you want to see right to your living room. It’s what you want—`The consumer is our God’ (said) the chairman of the MTV Network.’’

Incidentally, some of these issues were discussed at the ``Media Nation 2: Owning Up’’ conference in Tagaytay last month.

It is not true, McKibben says, that we live in an age of information or that there is an information explosion/revolution. In many ways the opposite is true, he says.

``We live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach…An age of missing information.’’

The star culture and the hard-sell of excessive glamour and glitter that our local television networks promote have only added glaze to the eyes of starstruck TV junkies and to their dumbing, numbing and discombobulation. To prevent blood coagulation, don’t tune in to the early morning chatter on free TV.

The martyrdom of Dorothy Stang

``Speaking truth to power is a prophetic act and Sister Dorothy Stang paid for it with her life. (She) spoke for the dispossessed and the voiceless to the wealthy ranchers and lumber companies who ruthlessly savage the rainforest and exploit it for personal gain.’’ This was from the statement of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) of the U.S. on the recent murder of a nun who worked among the poor of the Brazilian Amazon.

A citizen of both the U.S. and Brazil, Stang, 73, took four bullets in her face and head from two gunmen on Feb. 12. The killers attacked Stang in a settlement near the rural town of Anapu, in the state of Para, where she worked to help some 400 families survive. Anapu is along the Trans-Amazon Highway whose construction several decades ago wreaked destruction on the Amazon wilderness.

Stang was murdered less than a week after meeting with Brazil’s human rights officials about threats to farmers from loggers and land owners. After receiving several death threats herself, Stang recently said: ``I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.’’

(After Stang, two other murders followed. Killed were the former president of a rural workers’ union and a farmer.)



A CNN report said that witnesses saw two gunmen approach Stang. Seing them, she pulled out a Bible and began to read. Her killers listened for a moment then stepped back and fired at close range.

Last year, Stang was named ``Woman of the Year’’ by the state of Para for her work in the Amazon region. In Dec. 2004 she received the Humanitarian of the Year award from the Brazilian Bar Association. And early this year she received an ``Honorary Citizenship of the State’’ award from Para.

This nun who wore T-shirts and a short bob was no parachutist, here now, gone tomorrow. Like the trees, Stang had grown roots in the Amazon region. One more mighty tree has been felled but the Amazon has certainly been made richer by the sap of Stang’s life and the manner of her death.

It’s martyrdom any way you look at it. And those of us who had dreamed in our youth of giving up family, fortune, career and comfort for the least and the lost could only wonder whether we would have had the fortitude that Stang had, whether we would have been as graced.

Having written about church-related stuff in succession these past weeks (last week, nuns and the Banwaon-Manobo under threat in Agusan), I told someone that I was not going to write about god/church stuff for some time. Well, I could not say ``Pass’’ on Stang the way I could not pass up the murder of Italian Annalena Tonelli who worked in Somalia for 33 years and lived among the poorest, giving hope to refugees and HIV-AIDS sufferers.

Like, why are they murdering all these great, selfless women? These are the real stars. They do not dazzle with glamour and glitter, the give light and life.

Stang’s fate was not unlike that of Chico Mendes who was murdered in 1988. Mendes worked among poor rubber tappers and fought road builders and international banks that threatened the jungle, the humans and the wildlife that depended on it. Get the book ``The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest’’ by multi-awarded journalist Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. Or watch the film.

What Revkin wrote about Mendes could well be for Stang. ``It became clear that the murder was a microcosm of the larger crime: the unbridled destruction of the last great reservoir of biological diversity on Earth.’’

Think of our own Sierra Madre, our ``last great forest.’’ And think of the recent series of disasters that showed us how nature strikes back.

For centuries, Brazilians have tried to conquer the Amazon (size: 4 million square kms.) which covers more than half of Brazil. Brazil is 28 times the size of the Philippines. I’ve read that the jungle frustrated ventures even by Henry Ford and billionaire Daniel Ludwig. Brazil’s 1964 to 1985 military government built the Trans-Amazon Highway and gave free land to populate the region. The plan attracted settlers as well as speculators who took control of the logging operations. Loggers, ranchers and politicians conspired and hired hit men to eliminate those who stood in the way.

The Amazon rainforest continues to be a battleground, with the poor inhabitants and ecologists together and the loggers and ranchers forcing themselves into the wilderness.

On the edge of this special place, Stang helped develop sustainable development projects for the poor of Anapu. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Stang belonged to the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She began her ministry in Brazil in 1966 then moved to the Amazon in the 1983. Stang worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, a Catholic organization that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants and defends land reform in Brazil.

You should hear the wailing of the swallows, a Chinese-Filipino activist told me, when the nests (dried bird saliva) are snatched from the limestone cliffs of Palawan, later to soak in that pricey Chinese soup. ``Do you know what a sobbing monkey sounds like?’’ Stang was quoted as saying to a group of legislators.

I hear them now, calling to us.

The Amazon holds some of the greatest wonders and secrets of this planet. Here now lives the spirit of a true ``Amazona.’’

Letter from the edge

Here is a letter I received on Valentine’s Day, from Good Shepherd Sisters who live and work both peacefully and dangerously among the lumad (indigenous people) of Agusan del Sur. Peacefully because they have been accepted by the people, they have grown roots with them and their work of 26 years has borne abundant flower and fruit in the community. Dangerously because the people and the nuns have to contend with the hazards of military presence and suspicion.

The Religious of the Good Shepherd-Tribal Filipino Ministry is flourishing in the municipality of San Luis. The place where the nuns run an ``ecology and spirituality farm’’ is called Tuburan, which means spring, which means life in those parts could indeed be joyous and abundant if only…



Dear Ceres,

We wake up to the chirping of birds and the sound of pigs and chickens asking for their morning meal. There is a forest nearby, the reason perhaps why the horizon is always wrapped in mist at dawn. It is a little slice of heaven on earth. The Banwaons and the Monobos are a peace-loving people, very simple, honest and deeply connected to the earth. Their culture is rich in tradition and steeped in spirituality. We always get inspired when we join their rituals.

However they are very poor materially. Their ancestral domain, the forests of San Luis, are rich in natural resources but the people have been deprived of these natural wealth.

Our latest concern is Barangay Balit which has been occupied by the military since November last year. Balit is 7 km. from the town center and is quite accessible. Here we have established our tribal ministry and various programs and projects in education and farming. We have also started a small infirmary.

Our ministry is open and above ground for everyone to see. We’ve had so many visitors here—top government and church officials from here and abroad, benefactors, ambassadors and their wives, our own superiors in the congregation, the media. They appreciate and support what we do. Sad to say, it seems it is only the military here that are not happy with our mission here. We and the people cannot understand.

At present, the 29th IB under Lt. Col.Johnny Macanas accuse the Balit community as an NPA (New People’s Army) barangay. We know that state security is the priority of the military so their job is to run after the enemies of the state, not after civilians. Balit is a registered barangay, its people are registered voters. The barangay officials have no criminal records.

In Sitio Minlinao, 14 people were given arms and made to surrender as rebels. They and their families were made to leave their homes and farms and resettled in a detachment at Km. 24. The children had to quit school. Two datus who were old and weak were listed as surrenderees. People say, ``this is good business for money and promotion.’’

Last month, Macanas took 12 men from Balit to undergo Cafgu training. They were again tagged as rebel returnees even if they were never with the NPA. How sad that this is being done by those who call themselves Christians, are educated and supposed to serve the people. Luoy kaayo ang mga lumad. (What a pity for the lumad.)

The people have asked the military to pull out, that the military should

• stop living in civilian houses without the community’s consent
• stop cutting trees in private and titled lands. (They never even ask permission.)
• move their camp away from the Balit community and follow the law
• stop their housing project. (They build without the consent of the barangay officials and the community.)

Are they not violating the people’s rights? Military men continue to live in civilian houses they have built at the back of people’s homes. Macanas said they have orders from ``above’’.

A fact-finding mission in Balit headed by Fr. Bench Balsamo MSC was conducted late last year and we are sending you the report. We have sent this to the civilian authorities but so far, no results. Last Dec. 27 the Inquirer came out with a story (by Ma. Kristina E. Cassion) titled ``Army project sends villagers away on Xmas.’’

Through the housing project the military has occupied the community. The soldiers, despite protests, put up a cooperative store. Nine stores closed shop.

Planting season is here but the lumad are afraid to go to their farms. They ask: ``What does the military want from us and our territory?’’ Their past experiences tell them that after military operations multi-national projects enter. The people are apprehensive. Four industrial tree plantations approved during the time of environment secretary Heherson Alvarez are waiting to be started. You know, the forests here are still thick with trees and other vegetation.

Why are the Banwaon-Manobo communities always the target? One datu said, ``If the military are after the rebels, they look for them in the mountains and not in Balit.’’ We, the Sisters are also being harassed and accused of many things but we do not want to focus on ourselves. We simply want to continue our work.

We have three main programs—education for children, sustainable agriculture for food and sufficiency, and health services. The people had asked for these and these are consistent with their efforts to develop and defend their ancestral domain. The right to till the land precedes the right to own.

We hold on together in times of crisis, when there are natural calamities and military operations. There have been threats to us and our staff—teachers, agriculturists, health workers—who have been with us for 10 to 16 years.

Our mission with the lumad is the mission of the Church. This mission is difficult but it is worth dying for.

Come and spend some time with us.

Your friends forever,

Good Shepherd Sisters
Kalilid Community

Spirituality and nation building

``Never mind, we’re topnotchers naman in spirituality, NGOs and deuterium deposits.’’ That was the comment of Butch Perez on Juan Mercado’s column piece titled ``Cellar Status’’ (Inquirer, Jan. 13, 2005) which was posted in the plaridel e-group. Mercado had bewailed Filipino students’ Math proficiency thus: ``So when do we scramble out this cellar?…Jammed between Morocco and Botswana, our kids limped in putting our country at No. 41 among 45 countries in Math.’’

Perez’s one-liner gave me an aray moment but it made me laugh because of its sheer sarcasm. Aren’t we tops din in jeepney mudguard epigrams?

Seriously now, spirituality—the deeply rooted and enriching variety--ain’t no laughing matter. In the recent Karangalan National Conference/Festival, which had for its theme ``Mobilizing Excellence to Create a Visionary Philippines’’, the subject of spirituality was discussed.

Sr. Mary John Mananzan OSB, prioress of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in the Philippines spoke on ``The Role of Spirituality in Nation-Building.’’ She began by noting that a lot was said about the different kinds of energy--economic, political and cultural--needed to re-create the country, as well as the natural energies that must be harnessed. But, she stressed, ``I believe one of the most untapped resources of human kind is spiritual energy and yet no nation building can succeed without it.’’



Spiritual energy, Mananzan said, is the mother lode and the most powerful of all energies. It is the most available energy for it is around and in us. It is inexhaustible, that is, the more we use it, the greater it becomes.

It goes by different names in different traditions. Shakti-kundalini for the Hindus; chi for the Buddhists; tao for the Taoists and the Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition. It is the life force, the divine life, the spiritual principle.

I have myself noticed that people sometimes confuse spirituality with religiosity or even with pietistic rituals. Reciting novenas to a dozen saints or memorizing a thousand verses from holy scriptures, per se, does not necessarily mean you are holy in the eyes of the God whose name you invoke. And such practices, if you ask me, are not entirely what spirituality is all about.

Mananzan presented Hindu spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo’s take on what spirituality is not: ``Spirituality is not a high intellectuality or idealism; it is not an ethical turn of mind or moral purity and austerity. It is not religiosity or an ardent and exalted emotional fervor and not even a compound of these excellent things. It is not a mental belief, creed or faith; it is not an emotional aspiration, a regulation of conduct according to a religious or ethical formula; it is not spiritual achievement and experience.’’

Spirituality, Mananzan stressed, is, in its essence ``an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than the mind, life and body. It is an inner inspiration to know, to feel…to enter into contact with the greater Reality behind and pervading the universe which inhabits also our own being.

``It is to be in communion with it and in union with it. It is a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our whole being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the union. It is a growth. It is a waking into a new becoming or new being, new self, new nature.’’

I found a great working definition of spirituality which I needed for a book being prepared. This came from noted theologian Fr. Percy Bacani of the Missionaries of Jesus: ``Spirituality is expressed in everything we do. It is a style, unique to the self, that catches up all our attitudes: in communal and personal prayer, in behavior, bodily expressions, life choices, in what we support and affirm and what we protest and deny. As our deepest self in relation to God, to the whole, and so literally in everything, spirituality changes, grows, or diminishes in the whole context of life.

``Consciously cultivated, nourished, cared about, it often takes the character of struggle as we strive to integrate new perceptions or convictions. And it bears the character of grace as we are lifted beyond previous levels of integration by a power greater than our own.

``Spirituality is deeply informed by family, teachers, friends, community, class, race, culture, sex, by our time in history, just as it is influenced by beliefs, intellectual positions and moral options. These influences may be unconscious or made explicit through reading, reflection, conversation, even conversion. And so spirituality includes and is expressed in our self-conscious or critical appraisal of our situation in time, in history and in culture.’’

Enriching one’s spiritual life, Mananzan said, means building a core of beliefs, values and attitudes from which fundamental decisions and choices spring. Of course, this must bear fruit and face external challenges on the ground such as economic injustice, the woman question, the environmental crisis, fundamentalism and religious intolerance, the culture of violence. How do we respond?

And so Mananzan spoke of ``transforming spirituality.’’ One that is affirming and mutually empowering, integrating and liberating. It is prophetic, it announces the good news and denounces the bad. It is contemplative, that is, it draws from stillness and solitude and is attuned to the present. It is healing and compassionate. And of course, yes, of course, it celebrates.

To Chinese-Filipinos who have enriched this country, Happy New Year of the Rooster. Shuey e, or better still, Kampei!

SWS corrects my reporting error

Mea maxima culpa.

I missed out on two words--a pronoun and a preposition--and this made a world of a difference. The words were ``it to’’. Because I missed those (my eyes did not coordinate with my brain) I wrote a sentence that turned one of the Social Weather Stations’ 2004 survey findings upside down.

This had to happen in the second to the last sentence of a longish news article, that is, when I was about to put a bullet on the article and write ``30’’. I hope not many readers got to that end part on the jump page. How I wish I had written something shorter and stopped at the usual 5,000 characters. Then the last two sentences would not have been written and live forever in the digital archives of the universe. Oh, but the right and good stuff, too, will live forever.

SWS president Dr. Mahar Mangahas’ letter to the editor will surely see print in a section of this paper but, just the same, here it is :



``Subject: PDI Error in Claiming that Filipinos Prefer Authoritarian Government

``In the PDI issue of Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005, the article by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo `Pinoys make do with less’ based on the SWS Survey Review of 2004 which I presented on Jan 26th at AIM, has a very serious error in claiming that SWS `said most preferred a more authoritarian government.’ What the presentation actually said (attached slide 61) is that ``Though only 40% are satisfied with how democracy works, most Filipinos prefer it to authoritarianism…’’ This was followed by a slide (attached Slide 62) with the clear labels: `57% prefer democracy’, and `24% prefer authoritarian government’.

``I trust you would agree that the issue of public preference between democracy and authoritarianism is of such great importance that for a newspaper to report the very opposite of what an opinion poll found is a very serious error indeed, and deserving of a very prompt and prominent correction.’’

SWS presented a whole year’s findings in 69 slides that showed dazzling colored graphs, statistics and summaries. These covered the elections, foreign relations, personal quality of life, governance, the Erap factor, corruption, democracy and general morale. The presentation was a comprehensive recap of what had been presented last year. It also went back 20 years. How has this nation progressed, what have we become?

SWS, a non-profit, non-government institution, is 20 years old, by the way.
I am not known to be a careless reporter, irresponsible feature writer or abusive columnist. So what happened? Did my mind play tricks on me?

I was myself baffled that most Filipinos would prefer an authoritarian government—for that is what my mind wrongly grasped. In fact, that is what I wrote, and mercifully, almost as a footnote.

Slide 61 on which I based my erroneous sentence and which Mangahas partially quoted in his letter, completely reads: ``Though only 40% are satisfied with how democracy works, most Filipinos prefer it to authoritarianism—and are again keeping a watchful eye on the loyalty of the military. They think democracy worked better a decade ago, and that in the next decade will recover partially.’’

Note the two highlighted words that blipped in my brain. The second sentence was the gremlin. I thought, people thought democracy worked better a decade ago but it does not work now. That it will work better in the next decade but it does not now. And so I wrote ``(SWS) said most preferred a more authoritarian government, and that they were keeping a watchful eye on the loyalty of the military.’’ Or so, I thought.

``A more authoritarian government’’--that was what I wrote, not ``authoritarianism’’. But I don’t blame the copy editor for putting ``authoritarianism’’ as subtitle for my last three sentences.

Now, postmortem, as I examine my SWS hard copy, I think I should have, while writing, referred to Slide 62, no matter how microscopic its numbers and words, that showed that—hear ye, everyone--57% in fact prefer democracy, while 40% are satisfied and 24% prefer authoritarian government.

It was slide 64 on my hard copy that caught my attention. It says ``Public anxiety about the loyalty of the AFP is back at the high levels of 1990-91.’’ During Mangahas’ presentation I scribbled ``worry?’’ Was this really anxiety, I thought.

The test statement for the respondents was: ``Ang Sandatahang Lakas ng Pilipinas o AFP ay tapat at masunurin sa gobyernong pinamumunuan ni Pang. (Aquino\Ramos\Estrada\Macapagal-Arroyo)’’. (The Armed Forces of the Philippines is loyal and obedient to the government headed by…) Did the dive in the ``agree’’ responses and the rise in the ``disagree’’ responses (the line graphs almost meet somewhere near 30%) for the Arroyo term necessarily mean anxiety? Might there be respondents who in fact prefer this scenario or simply don’t care?

I wanted to bring this up during the forum but I thought I’d rather listen. There were many facts and figures to absorb and I was trying to think of a good story angle. Surveys are high and dry, so how to bring this down to ground level?

I decided on how the Pinoy made do with less in 2004. I relegated the issue of democracy (just for now!) minus statistics to the second to the last sentence as it had been tackled so often. Well, it struck back as if saying, ``Daing (the fish, the lamentations) and democracy could go together.’’

I hope this lapse on my part would not be used by dark forces that threaten democracy.

****

Synchronicity? Tomorrow I attend the 2nd Philippine Summit of the News Media. It is dubbed ``Media Nation 2: Owning Up’’. Sponsored by the Inquirer, Phil. Center for Investigative Journalism, and other media institutions.