Like the wrath of God

Here is something that could serve as a historical footnote to the latest statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on the current political situation issued a few days ago. As we prepare for the 20th anniversary of the EDSA Revolt three weeks from now, I thought I should do a rewind and see parallels between the bishops’ move now and the bishops’ move 20 years ago.

I dug up the long feature story I wrote on the CBCP statement on the fraudulent 1986 snap elections shortly before the EDSA uprising. (``Like the Wrath of God’’, Feb.21-27, 1986, Mr&Ms. Special Edition, the daring and frisky weekly published by Eggie Apostol and edited by Letty J. Magsanoc, now Inquirer editor in chief.) I remember we were camped out at the CBCP compound waiting with bated breath for what the bishops had to say. That damning CBCP statement helped create the groundswell that led to the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship a few days later.

Take a trip down memory lane. Excerpts:

Finally things snapped. Out of the silent halls of the Catholic Church the voice of the hierarchy crackled. The post-election statement of the CBCP came down like the wrath of God.

Valentine’s Day 1986 would be long remembered as the day the bishops came out to condemn a political exercise. Lifting up their hemlines, they at last waded into muddy waters to cross the moat and lay siege on an impenetrable fortress.



The statement was, by far, the most scathing and the most pointed ever released by the CBCP. It outdid all previous pastoral letters, statements and exhortations and although nowhere in the statement was it mentioned who was guilty in the elections described by them as ``unparalleled in the fraudulence of their conduct’’ there was no mistaking who the bishops meant. As former hostage Bishop Feredico Escaler SJ (Zamboanga de Sur) exclaimed: ``Marcos will be boiling mad!’’

Scoring the systematic disenfranchisement of voters, the widespread and massive vote-buying, the deliberate tampering with the election returns, intimidation, harassment, terrorism and murder, the bishops took issue with ``a government in possession of power’’. Signed by CBCP president Ricardo Cardinal Vidal…the statement said: ``If such a government does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to…(Sorry, the bottom page didn’t come out in the photocopy).

``We are morally certain that the people’s real will for change has been manifested,’’ said Bishop Teodoro Bacani. Bishop Claver said: ``The mandate for change is very clear. You make up your mind what that change means.’’

Although the bishops did not go into specifics on the action to be taken, they prescribed ``active resistance of evil by peaceful means—in the manner of Christ’’. Their call would later see shape in Ms. Corazon Aquino’s seven-point program of civil disobedience laid out at the ``Tagumpay ng Bayan’’ rally at the Luneta where she called for a boycott of the crony banks, media, corporations and delay of payments to the government. The bishops’ presence at the rally lent legitimacy to Ms. Aquino’s claim to victory in the elections.

They’ve come a long way, the monsignores. Since martial rule was imposed in 1972, there was nary a whimper of protest from the CBCP….(It was the rank-and-file that fought and suffered with the masses.)

Before the February snap elections the CBCP released an exhortation ``We Must Obey God Rather Than Men’’ calling on the faithful ``not (to) passively surrender to the forces of evil and allow them to unilaterally determine the conduct and results of these elections.’’ Cardinal Sin and the auxiliary bishops of Manila wrote one last December while Cardinal Vidal also issued one for Cebu. Several other bishops issued letter for their respective dioceses.

Coming out with the post-election statement was not all that easy. As Bishop Antonio Fortich of Bacolod said: ``It is 90 degrees Fahrenheit.’’ Closeted at the CBCP complex in Intramuros, several times retreating into silence to pray and discern, the 66 bishops (of the more than 100, several of whom are retired) divided themselves into groups and presented their reports on the elections. Namfrel’s Jose Concepcion, Vicente Jayme and Jose Feria also came to give reports.

Not to be outdone, Imelda Marcos did a Nicodemus and came in the dead of night to reportedly convince the bishops not to come out with the statement. Ms. Aquino came too, two hours before the bishops’ press conference to ``assure Cardinal Vidal of my non-violent course of action….’’

Last Sunday there were ``staged’’ walkouts while the letter was being read. The government TV crew was not far behind to shoot. Labor Minister Blas Ople would later take issue with the bishops while Comelec chairman Victorino Savellano would stop going to church even as the Pope expressed confidence in the bishops’ judgment. One thing was sure though—no one walked out of the CBCP conference contrary to what Marcos would later say at a press conference…

There were two drafts to choose from. The bishops voted for the stronger one…According to Escaler, four theologians helped in the drafting. They were Frs. Antonio Lambino and Pedro Achutegui, both Jesuits, Fr. Fausto Gomez of the Dominicans and Fr. Miranda of the SVDs...

While many bishops emerged from the conference beaming with satisfaction, there were a few who reportedly abstained from voting for the letter. ``Don’t ask me the names,’’ said Escaler. ``But there were three or four who kept putting up objections…But it was all done in an open spirit. We said, look, you’re not telling us we’re liars but that is how we perceive the situation—there is enough basis. We were practically unanimous.’’

Pacquiao, Onyok, Ali and life

I am not a boxing fan but I did wait with bated breath for Manny Pacquiao’s Sunday confrontation with Mexican legend Eric Morales. And I did let out some expletives with some punches from either side.

The closest I have been to boxing is in our weekly taebo sessions at the Inquirer. When our trainer John Q yells ``Attack!’’ we demolish imaginary foes and when it is ``Defense!’’ we duck under our fists. You have to be fully focused and cannot allow the mind to wander otherwise you’d get lost in the footwork. It is during the post-taebo crunches and push-ups that I do my out-of-body flight that helps me make it (arrrgh!) to the last count.

The last time I wrote about boxing was 10 years ago when Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco Jr. won the silver at the Atlanta Olympics. (Onyok is Ilonggo endearment for Junior.) The Inquirer's banner photo of our champ on the podium waving a Philippine banderita and wearing that gentliest of smiles brought tears to my eyes. I remember that look that outshone his silver medal. After having been brutally battered by the judges (but not by the Bulgarian) Onyok emerged unbowed, with a countenance so serene, so beautiful, so gently Ilonggo. That photo spoke a thousand words.

That is why I wrote about it. The human side of it, not the brutal sport. But how does one separate the two? Our sports guru Recah Trinidad will tell you, you can’t. And where is Onyok now, I want to know.



Boxing is the sport of the underdog. I have yet to know of a boxer who was born rich. But they could die rich, that is, if they use what they know of boxing in navigating through later life.

Like boxing, long distance cycling is also for the anak pawis. Although every other rich kid now owns a mountain bike, I have yet to know of one that would want to join The Tour. In boxing and long-distance cycling, one has to have a high threshold for pain. They are not for the faint of heart. In golf (which also needs discipline), you take your sweet time walking and you have to have lots of money too, unless you are a caddy with access to the green.

Much has been said about Pacquiao, how he made the nation rise as one in jubilation. What he said, thought and felt; what he wore and ate and his hopes for this fractured nation. Pacquiao’s famous victory quote: “Sana magkaintindihan na tayong lahat.” (Literal translation: “I hope we would now understand one another.”) But we all know that magkaintindihan (from entiende) means more than just understanding, it means settling differences and living in peace and harmony.

Being mainly a feature writer, I am interested in knowing more about the so-called “Pacquiao Team” that got a little of the limelight. Who are they, what are they?

I have kept all these years the April 25, 1988 issue of the Sports Illustrated magazine with “(Muhammad) Ali and His Entourage” as cover story. It is about “The Greatest” and the people who waited on him when he was the greatest. The story by Gary Smith is a great one. “The champ and his followers were the greatest show on earth, and then the show ended. But life went on.” The gleaming black-and-white photographs by Gregory Heisler are probing. It is a story about greatness and decline. It is also about moving on.

Here again are the men and woman who doted on the champ long after the show had ended. All together, they paint a portrait of Ali, even as they paint a portrait of themselves.

Of Ferdie Pacheco, the doctor: “The first signal of decline was in Ali's hands. Pacheco began injecting them with novocaine before fights, and the ride went on. Then the reflexes showed, the beatings began, the media started to question the doctor. And the world began to learn how much the doctor loved to talk...The slower Ali spoke, the more frequently spoke the doctor.”

Of Gene Kilroy, the facilitator: “He has covered the walls of his rec room with 50 Ali photos. He reminisces every day. He watches videos of old Ali interviews he helped facilitate....”

Said Lana Shabazz, the cook: “I call him, ask him what he's eatin'. People ask me all the time how he's doin. Know how that feels, when people ask you how's your child, and you don't know what to say?”

Of Luis Sarria, the masseur: “I remembered (those hands), working endlessly up and down the smooth ripples of Ali's body until he drifted off to sleep. His hand I remembered, but I could not remember him.”

Of Pat Patterson, the bodyguard: “(He) had to sit on the corner stool and watch helplessly when his man needed protection most, in the ring when the end was near. `Watching him get hit was like watching someone stick my mama with a knife.'”

Of Herbert Muhammad, the manager: “His dream of building 49 more mosques like this first one, using the money Ali and he could generate, was drifting further and further from his reach. Ali slurred words and shook and didn't want to be seen on television.”

Of Drew (Bundini) Brown, the motivator: “...the ghetto poet who motivated Ali and maddened him, who invented the phrase, `Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'...who licked Ali's mouthpiece before sliding it in but never said a yes to him he didn't mean; who could engage the champion in long discussions of nature and God and man, then lie in the hotel pool before a fight and have his white woman.”

Despite his immense wealth, Ali remained trapped in a ghetto.

The world of boxing is a surreal world, a gold mine for stories. Consider the many movies (``The Champ’’, ``Raging Bull’’, ``Million-Dollar Baby’’) and novels--Norman Mailer's among them. I don't like boxing but I like boxing stories.

Santo Ninos, rapture and tragedies

Another religion-related tragedy has claimed the lives of at least 20, the majority of them innocents who, when they set off, had no idea that their foolhardy elders were taking them to their watery graves.

Last Sunday, the feast of the Holy Infant Jesus or the Santo Nino, a boat overloaded with devotees and their children capsized in the waters off San Ricardo town on Panaon Island in Southern Leyte. The boat named ML Jun Jay was part of a fluvial procession, a festive display that often highlights religious feasts in places that are near bodies of water.

Overcrowded boats, uncaring public officials, unmindful church officials, fevered rapture and carefree abandon on the part of devotees—all these are the ingredients of impending disaster. It had happened several times before, it happened again on one of the Filipinos’ beloved of feasts. And most of the victims were children like the Santo Nino.

But if ill-managed fluvial processions are the recipe for tragedies, they also say a lot about the Filipinos’ penchant for public display of religious fervor that borders on fanaticism and recklessness. No one could say what spiritual merits or demerits could come from all these. I leave that to God to decide.



It is hard to fathom the motives, the reasons and the urgency that push people to participate in these life-threatening faith-related activities, such as getting crucified while roasting in the deadly summer heat, risking being trampled on during the feast of the Black Nazarene or squeezing into overloaded boats. Two people died during the Black Nazarene ``surge’’ (human tsunami is more like it) last week that is not seen anywhere in the world.

Some do it as panata (a vow) because of prayers that have been granted, others do it to buttress pending petitions, and there are those who simply feel good being there with the hope grace would rain down on them.

With the exception of the messy crucifixion, the other religious-cultural festivities aren’t supposed to be life threatening if only these are properly organized and controlled. But we never learn.

In 1993, 269 perished in the murky river in Bocaue, Bulacan when a pagoda-boat packed with devotees capsized. Similar tragedies happened in Lumban, Laguna; Butuan City and Pampanga in the past decade. These are all so relatively recent that after a few clicks of the computer keys by the Inquirer research staff the news stories on these tragedies quickly tumbled out.

And was it at the Penafrancia feast that a makeshift structure, from where people watched the fluvial procession, collapsed?

Grim and determined Bible-thumping purists will easily dismiss all this Pinoy frenzy as plain idolatry. As a Christian and Catholic, I have never felt inclined to make such practices part of my spiritual itinerary. But as a Filipino, ah, I love watching this faith-filled cultural display. Who am I to judge the state of the soul of those who practice this type of popular religiosity?

Beholding the faith and fervor of the masa could be a confounding experience. And it would be good for those who seem to have had their faith all theologically and biblically figured out to come down from their perch. There is a lot to learn from hobnobbing with the hoi polloi for whom spiritual ecstasy might come easy with only the Marian hymns in Baclaran on Wednesdays. Or in being lost in the heady mist of incense in Quiapo church and knowing in their heart of hearts that God listens and has mercy.

Still it wouldn’t hurt if the church hierarchy would do something to rein in the excess fervor even for the simple reason that God does not want to see the multitude falling all over themselves and to their deaths. But that is the Pinoy, one might argue, and this trait is perhaps what keeps many from choosing death by suicide.

This affection for the Santo Nino, academics would say, is reflective of the Filipino’s amazing childlike faith that also often borders on the childish. How do you explain the transmogrification of the image of the Infant Jesus of Prague into a nino with multiple personalities?

If the parish you went to last Sunday was one attended by people from all walks of life, you would have seen Santo Ninos also from all walks of life and dressed according to their owners’ taste, inclination and predilection. The Santo Nino has now become a doll to be fancily dressed up like a Barbie or an infant transvestite. But macho Santo Ninos in police uniform are now also fairly common.

At Mass last Sunday I saw a Santo Nino in denim overalls carried by a young woman who was wearing the shortest denim shorts. (Only in Catholic churches. You don’t see this kind of Sunday wear in the Iglesia ni Cristo.) Well, in order not to be discomfited and discombobulated by the surreal-ness of it all I chose to be amused.

Elsewhere that day, while ``Pit Senor!’’ exploded in Cebu and the ati-atihan thundered with ``Hala Bira!’’ in Kalibo, ninos and ninas drowned in Southern Leyte.

It’s real and it’s surreal. As the great Nick Joaquin wrote: ``So how much more manifold do you want the Philippines to be? From orgasmic Kalibo to tranquil Boracay. Or from the hot mystic lowlands of Pangasinan to the cold mystic highlands of Baguio. From the mega that is Manila to the mini that is a Ma’i village. Within this archipelago you commute between the 20th century and the prehistoric, between 13th century gothic and baroque, between the Islamic and the Hispanic, between the East and West, here met and mated.

``Hala bira! Which means: Sock it to me!’’

Female feticide

How would those who champion women’s rights to choose (what they want to do with their bodies and the babies in their wombs) handle this mutilation of future women? If there is an issue that makes the pro-choice advocacy in the women’s rights movement stand on its head this is it.

I am not twitting, I am saying that this issue is important for the pro-choice advocates to address.

In the Reuters news two days ago, and which the Inquirer carried, was the recent published research on fertility figures that showed that about 10 million female fetuses may have been deliberately aborted in India over the past 20 years.

This practice was not discovered just yesterday. It has been going on for some time since the technology for sex determination (amniocentesis, ultrasound, etc.) became available. But when a science research team gets down to the bottom of it, comes up with numbers and publishes the findings in the prestigious The Lancet medical journal, the world takes notice.



This massive selective abortion of female fetuses, the report said, must be the most plausible explanation for the skewed male to female ratio. Dr. Prabhat Jha, of the University of Toronto, who headed the research, said that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion account for half a million missing girls yearly. Multiply that by 20 years and you have 10 million missing girls. The Indian Medical Association has a more shocking estimate—five million female fetuses are killed in India each year.

A lot has been written about this criminal practice of killing female fetuses in India where sons are deemed more precious than daughters, where tradition that has perpetuated this preference dies hard.

There is a big uproar over this among Indians themselves. Sure, the women’s movement is alive and well in India, NGOs working for the welfare of women thrive there and yet they could only do so much in preventing the killing of female fetuses.

As I said, this issue surely makes the pro-choice in the women’s rights movement stand on its head. One cannot defend the rights of female fetuses and not defend the rights of any fetus. One cannot raise an outcry over the killing of these supposedly unwanted female fetuses and not raise an outcry over the killing of fetuses in general, they be female or male.

What makes for a less-preferred or an unwanted fetus? It’s being female (as in the case of India or China)? The fetus’ mother’s preference as dictated by culture? The circumstances and context of its conception? (Rape, poverty, too many children already.)

I bring up this scenario because, in India where abortion is legal, abortion becomes illegal if it is sex-determined, meaning that abortion is based on the fetus’ sex. But it is legal if the reason is not the baby’s sex but some other.

India’s Pre-natal Diagnostic Technique Act of 1994 criminalizes sex determination tests with the motive of female feticide. Doctors in India are prohibited from disclosing to their patients who undergo ultrasound procedure (for whatever reason) what their babies’ sex is. But everybody knows that speech or the written word is not the only means of communicating.

The Indian government even launched a series of ads against rampant killing of unborn girls. This practice is rooted in the cultural preference for sons and the exorbitant dowry demands on the families of brides.

In India there is this saying ``Raising a girl is like watering the neighbor’s garden,’’ Jeremy Copeland of CBC News wrote. ``In a country where sons have far more status than daughters, Susheela did what many Indian women are too afraid to do: she gave birth to a baby girl. Twelve weeks into her pregnancy she went for an ultrasound test and the doctor accepted a bribe to reveal the sex of her fetus. When he announced Susheela was carrying a girl, her husband and mother-in-law tried to force her to have an abortion.

```They didn’t let me eat food. There were times when I went hungry for as many as to to three days,’ Susheela says. `They used to beat me. On two or three occasions my husband kicked me very hard in the stomach.’

``There are also religious reasons parents want a son. More than 800 million Indians are Hindu and their faith says only male children can perform the last rites for their parents.’’
The selective abortions and the skewed male to female ratio have alarmed Indian society. Religious groups recently held a conference with the theme ``India’s missing daughters: Faith for Action Against Sex Selection.’’

A 2001 census showed that in four states, the ratio has dramatically declined to less than 800 girls for every 1,000 boys. The ratio is still highest in Christian communities.

The study published in The Lancet showed that fewer females are born as second and third children if the first child in a family is a girl, the Reuters report said. This could be interpreted as a-boy-or-nothing effort on the part of families. No to another girl, the second one has to be a boy. Where did those missing second or third daughters go?

When I first learned about female feticide and the declining ratio of girls to boys, what played in my mind was a scene from a futuristic fiction where boys dramatically outnumbered girls, say, 10 to one. And there was this surreal stampede and panic among scientists to correct the situation by whatever means, including multiple births and cloning. Men were marrying men, women chose only the best and the brightest of men and the women who gave birth to daughters were to be envied.

Google for ``female feticide’’ and you’ll get plenty of eye-openers.

Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma: Beloved ``ingrata’’

To honor Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma (a fellow Scholastican) who passed away at 92 two days ago, I re-edited the piece I wrote in 2001 when she launched her book ``The Mirror of My Soul’’. Here it is.

Ingrata. That was how Munoz-Palma had been harshly called by a high government official. Ingrate. Ungrateful. The Spanish word reeks of contempt and condescension. You do not bite the hand that fed you.

It sounds even harsher in Filipino. Walang utang na loob. A person who receives help or is accorded honors, even if she deserves them, is presumed deeply indebted and when the time comes, is expected to stand by the favor- or honor-giver. Only the brave in our culture would dare go against this onerous unwritten contract.

But we are not wanting in brave and debt-defying civil servants, one of whom was Munoz-Palma, the first woman to sit in the Supreme Court (1973-1978). Although the appointing power in her case happened to be a dictator, a.k.a. Ferdinand E. Marcos, she showed him and the sycophants that she owed him nothing. She owed only God and the Filipino people whom she had sworn to serve. By defying expectations and pursuing the rule of law as her conscience dictated, all the more it was evident that this gentle and soft-spoken Batanguena was destined to sit above the throng.



Well, ingrata because as an associate justice speaking before her peers and members of the bar on the occasion of Law Day, she pleaded for the return of the rule of law. That was in 1975, the third year of martial rule and the lady told her audience: ``We shall be judged by history...not by what we want to do and can’t, (but) by what we ought to do and don’t.’’

For her guts, she received a five-minute standing ovation. But Justice Secretary Vicente Abad Santos was neither pleased nor amused. He remained seated. Ingrata, he called her. She took that as a compliment, a badge of courage.

Ingrata because she wrote a dissenting opinion on the habeas corpus case of former senator and nationalist Jose W. Diokno. Her opinion would have had embarrassed Marcos but before it could be presented, it was ``frustrated’’. Munoz-Palma’s written opinion (that had leaked) jumped the gun on the other justices and Marcos too, and paved the way for the release of Diokno who had been detained for more than 700 days without charges.

Munoz-Palma called the Diokno case her baptism of fire. And although her dissenting opinion did not see the full light of day as the habeas corpus petition became moot and academic with Diokno’s sudden release, it illumined the legal path during those dark and dreadful days.

Munoz-Palma’s ``frustrated dissenting opinion’’ could be read in full in her book ``The Mirror of My Soul: Selected Decisions, Opinions, Speeches and Writings’’ (883 pages!) which she gave away for free on the occasion of the Supreme Court’s 100th anniversary. Her opinion on the Diokno case (with which Associate Justice Calixto Zaldivar concurred) is simple enough for non-lawyers but it emits a luminous glow if read in the context of those dark years.

She ended that opinion by defending woman power thus: ``In closing, I am bothered by the thought that some of my colleagues may attribute my approach to Diokno’s petition to my being a woman, and I may even be accused of allowing my emotions to overpower my reason. If there is such an assumption, I would say that it is incorrect. However, if it is indeed true that my being a woman led me to take this stand...then I am happy and proud that I was born a woman.’’

More riveting is the intro to that case where Munoz-Palma describes how she wrote it while in hiding and how she later cloistered herself among the Benedictines of St. Scholastica’s College, her alma mater. (She was valedictorian of H.S. 31, after which she went to UP for law studies. She passed the bar in 1937.) If at all she gave in to a colleague who knew what she was up to, it was to erase the words ``arbitrary and oppressive’’ in her dissension.

There was life after the Supreme Court. Munoz-Palma led the anti-Marcos opposition and ran in the 1984 Batasan Pambansa elections and won by a landslide. Her battlecry: ``One Marcos cannot stop us all.’’ She later became the president of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution. She headed the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office where she again displayed her being ingrata when she did not cover up for the alleged wrongdoing of the president who appointed her.

``The Mirror of My Soul’’ packs courage. Said the late Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan: ``I can still see her standing on the floor of the Batasan...No one can equal the passion with which she fought Amendment No. 6--that curse of presidential usurpation of legislative powers. She was also one of the few among us who dared file articles of impeachment against the then head of government.’’

Munoz-Palma tells readers that they ``will not find literary gems or grandiose or loftily-worded judicial and legal pronouncements’’ in her book, only ``plain words...thoughts and ideas and principles emanating from my conscience and reason on faith, truth, justice, freedom and the Rule of Law.’’

The rule of law--these words were like her mantra. Her ``A Plea for the Rule of Law’’ that earned her the ingrata label(and where she also said much about womanhood) is a good read. But one can’t miss the spiritual theme that also runs through her writing. Indeed, this woman had always hearkened to a higher power, a higher law.

Christmas letters from Muslims

Peace, Kapayapaan, Kalinaw, Kalinong, Salam, Shalom, to you this Christmas.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive letters from Muslims working in Saudi Arabia reacting positively to last week’s column piece, ``The Christmas Story in the Koran’’ (12/22/05).

First, I’d like to say that the Inquirer stylebook spells the name of the Muslims’ Holy Book as ``Koran’’ so the few times in the past that I wrote ``Qur’an’’ I always got a call from the proofreading department informing me that the spelling will changed. I again got a call regarding my title.

At first I was a bit hesitant to run the account on Mary’s pregnancy and the events that led to Jesus’ birth as narrated in the Koran. Was my copy of the Koran an accepted translation? I presumed that like the Bible that comes in different translations, the Koran also has many translations. My pocketsize copy is by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House and published in the US. Its title is ``The Koran’’ I got it from Powerbooks for only P125.75. The Bible isn’t as cheap.

Honestly, I was charmed by the account on Mary giving birth beside the trunk of a date palm. Famished and in pain, Mary heard a voice telling her to shake the tree, whereupon ripe dates fell on her. Dates are a good post-partum repast, I suppose. I thought, we have always associated Christmas with castanas (chestnuts). Why don’t we switch to dates?

I really prefer dates. Some of the best I’ve tasted were preserved ones that were still on the twig. They came from Tunisia. Dates, I was told, are a popular food item for Muslims at the end of Ramadan.

Now, if we go by the ripening of the dates and their falling on Mary, this would mean that Jesus was not born during a winter month but in the summer in that part of the world. Not that the exact date and time matters much now.

Anyway, here are some of the letters.



``I was, as usual, going over the columns and to my surprise, I found your story title to be quite intriguing. However, as I read the story, I was happy to know that even if our times have changed, good people are still not hard to find. Thanks for taking time out to read our Holy Qur’an (correct name) and I am grateful that you have published the story of our beloved Prophet Jesus (or Issa in Arabic). (Peace and blessings be upon him.) Keep up the good work. -alepa@Kfshrc@edu.sa’’

****

``Thank you for your nice article about Virgin Mary and Jesus as mentioned in the Qur’an. Yes indeed, as Muslim reverts we believe in them as well as all the prophets sent by Allah or God. Prophets sent by Allah to teach people to worship only one true God and their greeting is ``Salam’’ (peace). Jesus was sent to Bani Israel and said: `Hear Israel, your God and my God is one, so worship Him only.’ Also Issa (Jesus) said: `And verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord. So worship Him (alone).’

``That is the Straight Path--Allah’s religion of Islamic Monotheism which He did ordain for all of His Prophets. [Ayah 36, Surah 19 (Maryam), the Glorious Qur’an.]

``But (Jesus’) birthday is not celebrated by practicing (Sunni) Muslims. When Mary gave birth, fresh ripe dates dropped when she shook the trunk of the palm tree. Here in the Middle East, dates ripen during summer (July-August) and not December.

``Reading the Qur’an and learning Islam is really a good sign for all of us Filipinos in order to bring lasting peace and progress in our country. Peace be unto you. - Ben Manikan, Riyadh, KSA, afiainc1423@yahoo.com’’

****

``Salam! That is how we greet each other in Islam. Peace! And I would like to extend it to you. For me you are lucky to have the chance to have taken a glimpse of the Qur'an and I hope this won't be the last time. Please read it to feed your mind and to nourish your soul. Don't be afraid that you will end up comparing the Bible and the Qur'an. Happy Holidays! - Mary-Ann Amir,RN, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’’

****

I also received a letter from a friend and church activist from way back, now Midsayap-based Pastor Al Senturias, chair of the Mindanao People’s Peace Movement (MPPM). Al and his wife Linda (president of the Southern Christian College) are both involved in forging peace among Christians and Muslims.

Attached with the letter was the ``Summary Report and Recommendations of the Mindanao People’s Peace Mission to Sulu’’(conducted before Christmas).

Among the 13 observations are:

1. The people complain of looting done by the military during operations and being fired at by helicopter gunships.

2. There are American troops in Sulu engaged in bayanihan or civic works. However, the people are not aware of the real purpose of the Americans’ presence.

3. There is suspicion on the part of the military leadership regarding the motivations of concerned citizens, just as there is deepening mistrust among civilians of military presence.

4. There is a strong citizens’ movement capable of working with local government units, the police and the military in building a peaceful, orderly and progressive community.

Even longer are the recommendations classified as short-term (1 year), medium-term (two to three years) and long-term (four to seven years). The long-term has to do with addressing the root of the conflict in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, as well as other Bangsamoro areas in Mindanao and Palawan. This is the about the right to self-determination of the Bangsamoro.

There is so much more to this MPPM report than I am able to mention and which government, civil society and churches ought to pay attention to. There is reason to hope for peace, if only….

The Christmas story in the Qur’an

The Christmas story is not only told in the bible of the Christians, it is also in the Qur’an of the Muslims. I went over the Qur’an which is not familiar terrain for me, I also browsed through an Islamic website where I found interesting stuff.

In the Qur’an one will find an account of Mary’s own birth, the Annunciation and later, the Nativity and Jesus’ public life. Mary is mentioned in the Qur’an 34 times. But before Jesus’ birth is the story about the miraculous conception and birth of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Messiah that was to come.

The Qur’an says that Mary was the daughter of the wife of Imran. When Imran’s wife was pregnant, she made a vow that she would offer her child to be raised and serve at the Temple. She thought she would give birth to a son, but when she delivered, the child turned out be a girl. The mother was disappointed.

She named the child Mary which meant servant. Mary’s father Imran had died before she was born, so her mother brought her to the temple to be reared by the priests. Zakariyya (John the Baptist’s father?) was one of them. Unable to decide who would have the privilege of having custody of Mary, the priests drew lots. Zakariyya’s name was drawn and he became Mary’s guardian.

When Mary reached the age of puberty, Zakariyya saw to it she was protected from the eyes of men. Mary worshipped Allah in a special partition where nobody could enter except Zakariyya. Whenever Zakariyya came in he always found her with food.



``O Mary! Whence comes this to you?’’ Zakariyya would ask. Mary would answer: ``It is from Allah, and surely Allah gives sustenance to whom He pleases, without measure.’’

From the Qur’an here is the word-for-word account on the Annuciation:

This is one of the announcements of things Unseen by thee: To thee, O Muhammad! Do we reveal it; for thou wast not with them when they cast lots with reeds which of them should rear Mary; nor wast thou with them when they disputed about it.

Remember when the angel said, ``O Mary! Verily God announceth to thee the word from Him: His name shall be, Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, illustrious in this world, and in the next, and one of those who have near access to God;

``And he shall speak to men alike when in the cradle and when grown up; And he shall be one of the just.’’

She said, ``How, O my Lord! Shall I have a son, when man hath not touched me?’’ He said, ``Thus: God will create what He will; When He decreeth a thing, He only saith, `Be,’ and it is.’

``And he will teach him the Book, and the Wisdom, and the Law, and the Evangel; and he shall be an apostle to the children of Israel. `Now I have come,’ he will say, `to you with a sign from your Lord: Out of clay will I make for you, as it were, the figure of a bird: and I will breathe unto it, and it shall become by God’s leave, a bird. And I will heal the blind, and the leper; and by God’s leave will I quicken the dead, and will tell you what ye eat, and what ye store up in your houses! Truly in this will be a sign for you, if ye are believers….’’

But this is getting ahead of the story. In a later chapter (vide xix), the Annunciation scene is repeated. Mary gives birth, not in a stable, but beside the truth of a date palm. This is a rather colorful birth scene, what with dates falling on her.

And make mention of the Book of Mary, when she went apart from her family, eastward,
And took a veil to shroud herself from them: and We sent Our spirit to her, he took before her the form of a perfect man.

She said: ``I fly for refuge from thee to the God of Mercy! If thou fearest Him, begone from me.’’

He said, ``I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a holy son.’’

She said, ``How shall have I a son, when man hath never touched me? I am not unchaste.’’

He said: ``So shall it be. They Lord hath said: `Easy is this with me;’ and `We will make him a sign to mankind, and a mercy from Us. For it is a thing decreed.’

And she conceived him, and retired with him to a far-off place.

And the throes came upon her by the trunk of a palm. She said, ``Oh, would that I had died ere this, and been a thing forgotten, forgotten quite!’’

And one cried to her from below her: ``Grieve not thou, thy Lord hath provided a streamlet at thy feet:--

And shake the trunk of the palm tree towards thee: it will drop fresh ripe dates upon thee.

Eat then and drink, and be of cheerful eye: and shouldst thou see a man,

Say,--``Verily, I have vowed abstinence to the God of mercy.—To no one I will speak this day.’’

Then came she with the babe to her people bearing him. They said, ``O Mary! Now hast thou done a strange thing!

O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of wickedness, nor unchaste thy mother.’’

And she made a sign to them pointing towards the babe. They said, ``How shall we speak with him who is in the cradle, an infant?’’

It said, ``Verily, I am the servant of God; He hath given me the Book, and He hath made me a prophet;

He hath made me blessed wherever I may be, and hath enjoined me prayer and almsgiving so long as I shall live.

And to be duteous to her that bare me: and he hath not made me proud, depraved.

And the peace of God was on me the day I was born, and will be the day I shall die, and the day I shall be raised to life.’’

This is Jesus, the son of Mary; this is a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt.

It beseemeth not God to beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He only saith to it, ``Be,’’ and it is.

Peace be to all the warring Christians and Muslims. Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat!