‘Babaylan’ crossings

You have tampered with the women/ You have struck a rock/ You have dislodged a boulder/ You will be crushed. – from an Afrikaan freedom song

That is a line from an Afrikaan freedom song sung at the historic women’s freedom march in 1956 in South Africa. The minister of education recalled those lines during the 2002 ground breaking of the Opra Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Soweto. The academy opened as 2007 was being ushered in and was ready to take in its first batch of girls.

That school was Oprah’s promise to the revered former South African Pres. Nelson Mandela when she visited in 2002. Her initial promise of $10,000 became $40,000. Oprah’s choice of place was Soweto. Her choice of students were girls from underprivileged background whom she herself had interviewed and handpicked.

Now the academy has opened. Many girl children who will go there will be trained to be future leaders and achievers in their chosen fields, compassionate, strong, giving. And beautiful, of course, inside and out.

In an article, a girl who was interviewed recounted the “phenomenal few minutes” with Oprah: “(She) asked me three questions. What I want to become. Why? And what good advice I’ve given anyone.”

Oprah has shown a great example to the rich, famous and influential. This bright and influential woman of US television and one of the world’s richest came from a difficult childhood (she was black, poor and abused) has moved on to great heights and expanded her embrace.



I hope I’d be able to see something like the Oprah school rising in these islands. But we are not wanting in schools for girls, only most if not all of them are “exclusive” for girls who are mostly already privileged. Many of them do not really have big, urgent dreams to be something for humanity.

Yes, I know there are schools for girls that have made big strides in educating their students to be strong women of character but so many other concerns—financial, among them—get in the way.

Oprah is indeed a priestess, a modern babaylan.

The book “Centennial Crossings: Readings on Babaylan Feminism in the Philippines” may be a year late—one year after the centennial of the feminist movement in the Philippines—but it sure came out at a time when women’s issues were (and are) very much in the forefront. There was the recent conviction of a Filipina woman’s rapist, a US serviceman, and the consequent debate over the latter’s custody pending the decision of a higher court. Then there was his “midnight crossing” or transfer to the custody of the US embassy, the Philippine government’s way of acquiescing to the US, or else…

Before feminism there was the so-called babaylanism, the book says. This was a form of women’s collective consciousness indigenous to the Philippines. A babaylan is a woman priest, healer and visionary. Alas, little is said of her in history books. This is not because there are few historical data on her. This is because women, in historical accounts by men, were almost always portrayed as and reduced to being mere passive spectators, not active participants in the unfolding of history.

The babaylan spirit did not die because it was kept alive by cultural traditions and practices, it stayed on despite being marginalized because of foreign colonization and neglect in the pages of history.

Now women are not only making it come alive again, they are making sure that it is kept alive not just in practice but also in the written word.

“Centennial Crossings” (edited by Fe B. Mangahas and Jenny R. Llaguno) is a collection of women’s writings that show that the babaylan spirit has not died. The modern babaylans are making sure the spirit does not ever die, that more women find and identify that spirit in them.

The book features both personal reflections and academic analyses. The spiritual and cerebral intertwine. Women from different disciplines and background discover the babaylan in them and in their creative process. A dancer, a writer, an academic, a religious, an activist. Each one has discovered the name of the in-dwelt babaylan. She has a name, a face, a voice.

Mangahas puts the babaylan in historico-cultural context. Agnes Miclat Cacayan discovers the babaylan dancing in wholeness. Arche L. Ligo searched for her among women on a mystical mountain. Sr. Rosario Battung, RGS found her among the women healers of the north.

And then there are those who have found the babaylan alive in themselves, making them dance, sing, create, pray, teach, reach out.

Mangahas writes: “Even among feminists in the Philippines today few realize that feminism as it refers to women’s political consciousness is a borrowed concept. The word feminism was first used in this country by Concepcion Felix et al., with the founding of Asociacion Feminista Filipina (in 1905). Antedating this usage, the word feminista and even the earlier Spanish word femenina, there was the word babaylanismo—a form of women’s consciousness indigenous to the Philippines.”

Mangahas adds that although babaylanism was long and evolution and yet rooted in Philippine culture, it remains an esoteric topic, if not a dead relic of the past.
“Centennial Crossings” proves that babaylanism is not a thing of the past. It is a great read, I promise you. And I discovered something about myself too. I think there is a babaylan in me. You’ll find her there too, if you look closer, deeper.

A Christmas song for Raymond

If I’d make a wish for Christmas
Each day would be like Christmas night
When we put aside our fighting
Find the warmth that comes from giving
When the rushing world slows down for once
To share a song of joy


Then the noise will fade
Weary hearts will find themselves at ease
Throughout the world, all men will learn
To live in Christmas peace


If I’d make a wish for Christmas
Each man would be more like a child
Hearts that marvel at the small things
Love and laughter everlasting
And a worldwide wonder as we raise our eyes
To a million shining stars


Only then will we see the Baby Jesus in our hearts
What a miracle, the Heavenly King born in our hearts… If I’d make a wish for Christmas…



A boy with autism, a young volunteer, students and professionals with music in their hearts, a group that spreads the good news--all with hopes for quiet and peace in the land. Something beautiful was at work among them.

And so a Christmas song was born.

Some years ago, Marchan Padla, a young volunteer at Ang Arko ng Pilipinas, a l’Arche community that cares for mentally handicapped persons, wrote lyrics and a melody for a song. It was a song he dedicated to Raymond, an autistic boy who has become an inspiration to many who have come his way.

This song found its way to Hangad, a group of students and young professionals bound by their desire to know God and who, through their music, help others know God. Hangad’s music is recorded and distributed by the Jesuit Communications Foundations (JCF).

Marchan told Hangad that he wrote the song at the height of anti-Muslim violence during the Estrada administration. He titled the song “Raymond’s Lullaby”. This was to honor the boy with autism. Raymond could not stand the Christmas holiday noise in the city he had to be brought somewhere else every time the noise was too much for him. Autistic persons are generally very sensitive to sound and cannot stand noise at high levels. But Raymond is more than the sum total of his autistic self. Proof of this is the song that came to life.

“Raymond’s Lullaby” is the lead track of Hangad’s Christmas album “A Wish for Christmas”. Hangad (www.hangad.com) and JCF hope to raise funds for Arko and make people aware of Arko (www.angarkongpilipinas.com) and its mission to serve those with intellectual disabilities.

A booklet titled “I Walk with Raymond” written by Catholic priest Roderick Milne (of the Marist congregation) of New Zealand several years ago tells the story about Raymond and the people of l’Arche Punla (or Ang Arko ng Pilipinas) which is the Philippine branch of l’Arche. Fr. Milne ministered to Raymond during his stay in the Philippines.

Ang Arko-Punla is in Bayanihan Village in Cainta, Rizal. L’Arche, an international community, was founded by Jean Vanier. Well-known author Henri Nouwen’s “The Road to Daybreak” tells about Vanier’s work.

Raymond was about eight years old in 1988 when he was abandoned by his family. Ang Arko-Punla, then in Nagtahan, took him in. Raymond has since been with Ang Arko. Raymond does not speak but communicates by making noises and bodily movements. He needs to be assisted but otherwise he is physically healthy and is a brisk walker.

There are many special persons like Raymond who live in l’Arche communities. And there are many good individuals like Marchan Padla and Fr. Milne who have found their way to these communities to serve. Maybe you will, too. The music might lead you there.

It’s amazing how a little song and a person who cannot speak and who hates noise have connected a number of people who did not know one another in the beginning. Paolo Kalaw Tirol of Hangad was so inspired he worked with Marchan to give the song its musical form and arrangement. Julius Guevarra did the instrumental arrangement.

The other songs in “A Wish for Christmas” are “Child Emmanuel”, “Paskong Pinoy Medley” (from five Filipino Christmas staples) and “Silent Night”. I was told it is selling well at P120. The album and other JCF products—music, books, video, etc.—are available at Tanging Yaman Outlets at the Loyola House of Studies in Ateneo de Manila University. From there, you might want to visit Ang Arko in nearby Cainta.

Another music group that needs support for its brave and off-the-beaten track repertoire is the Andres Bonifacio Concert Choir that brought music to our Inquirer Christmas celebration last week. They came in simple Filipino costumes and regaled us with patriotic, indigenous and popular Filipino songs. Founder, composer and conductor Jerry Dadap also coaches the Inquirer choir. He wrote the musical “Andres Bonifacio: Ang Dakilang Anak Pawis.”

The Andres Bonifacio Concert Choir and the Andres Bonifacio Rondalla are under the Andres Bonifacio Music Foundation (ABMFI) which was founded in 1986. If you want to add nationalistic musical fire to your affairs, call the ABMFI at 9314882.

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We all know now that: If it had been Three Wise Women (instead of men), they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the Baby Jesus, cleaned the stable, cooked dinner and brought practical gifts.

My addition: And they would have stayed on much, much longer to accompany the Holy Family during their flight into Egypt.

Today, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, let us remember and do something for the children and the infants who suffer because of neglect, widespread violence and disasters.
To those who sent Christmas text messages and did not get a reply from me, I wsh u a gr8 +mas @ a hp nu yr. In other words, I WISH YOU A GOOD AND MEANINGFUL CHRISTMAS AND A GREAT YEAR AHEAD. Remember how simply it all began.

Reclaiming public water

A water rate hike in Metro Manila is upon us and Ek Sonn Chan is on my mind.

There is something that water managers, providers, consumers, conservationists, activists and worriers, etc. might need to read. It is “Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World.” It is about wide-ranging approaches in reforming urban public water systems that are being practiced in developing countries. It’s about vision and against-all-odds innovation. I don’t have the book but I have the abstract and lengthy discussion paper on it.

It was published in 2005 by the Netherlands-based prestigious Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory and has been going the rounds of international water forums. I picked up the abstract and several papers on water privatization at the recent Asia Europe People’s Forum in Helsinki. Water services privatization in debt-ridden developing countries was among the life-and-death topics discussed there. At first I thought, what’s water doing in debates on globalization and neo-liberalism? As I listened in I realized that water, or access to it, is no longer just a basic human right, it has also become a commodity, a merchandise, what with water services being privatized and taken over by giant multinationals out to make big profits.

The announcement on the water rate hike the other day was like a douse of cold water on consumers’ pre-Christmas warm-up. On New Year’s Day you’ll be paying more. That is also when the cold and dry season begins to be felt. Later, it segues into hot and dry, and humid too, and people will need to take a bath more often, wash clothes more often, water their plants more often. It is indeed ironic, for we have just experienced disasters of the watery kind that wiped out villages.

So are we wet or are we dry?



We’re getting a double whammy. For didn’t they announce earlier that there will be a water shortage in the national capital region (NCR) in the coming months? The water level in the reservoirs will dip while the rates will soar. Is this about the law of supply and demand?

When water services were privatized 10 years ago, consumers thought their water woes would end. I remember doing a front-page three-part series on big-time water thieves disguised as water suppliers of parched Paranaque. Privatization, the residents had hoped then, would ease their woes, and it did, but not entirely for the majority of Metro Manilans.

At the 2003 World Water Forum in Kyoto, private think tanks pushed and promoted private sector involvement. International financing institution and Northern governments backed them. Well, studies like the one by the London-based Public Services International Research Unit, have shown that “there is no systematic intrinsic advantage to private sector operation in terms of efficiency.” In fact, water multinationals, among them Suez, have had to withdraw from concessions in cities in Bolivia, Argentina and Tanzania. (Suez partnered with Benpres in the failed Maynilad.)

There is a new and growing awareness that public water operations deserve support as they are crucial in achieving the so-called Millennium Development Goals. And the good news, according to experts, is that good public water delivery is possible. There are new innovative models that are rooted in citizens’ involvement. “Reclaiming Public Water” documents these and cites ways of overcoming bureaucracy and other causes of public service failure.

A successful model is the “public-public partnerships” or PUPs where high-performing public utilities are matched up with those that are not performing so well for the purpose of sharing expertise.

At the March 2006 Water Forum in Mexico City, the PUP gained growing support. This was a significant shift from the earlier water forums (Hague 2000 and Kyoto 2003) where public water was hardly mentioned.

The Jubilee South-Asia Pacific Movement for Debt and Development’s study “Water Privatization in the Asia Pacific Region” presents privatization as “a deadly enterprise”. It cites the partnership between global giant Suez and the Lopez-owned Benpres (Maynilad Water Services) and the partnership between transnational United Utilities and Ayala Corporation (Manila Water Company). The World Bank had hailed these partnerships as the first large-scale water supply privatization in Asia.

The study also presents cases in the Asia-Pacific region. Privatization projects, the study says, are either explicitly included as part of loan criteria and conditionalities for borrowing countries or are prescribed for meeting fiscal targets required by international financial institutions.

Has privatization resulted in better services and affordable and safe water for many? Have other and better models been considered? There are now many studies on successful schemes in developing countries that the Philippines could learn from. Metro Manila’s failures need not be the lot of other areas that still need to have a good water system in place.

Ek Sonn Chan of Cambodia, 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service, has shown that things could be turned around if there is a will. Ek, an engineer and manager, was honored for his exemplary rehabilitation of a ruined public utility and bringing safe drinking water to a million people in Phnom Penh. Ek lost his entire family to the killing fields of the communist Khmer Rouge but he moved on to help in his country’s rehabilitation.

With world support Ek and his team embarked on a major overhaul of the water system and showed that it could be done. It was a heroic feat for a government bureaucrat.

Mabuting Pasko.

Climate change, the bigger enemy

While the Philippines was reeling from its yearly dose of typhoons, the worst of which struck recently, something related was happening elsewhere. The Twelfth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Second Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol was taking place at the UN office in Nairobi, Kenya from Nov. 6 to 17.

Kenya’s vice president Moody Awori told the delegates: “We are gathered this morning on behalf of humankind because we acknowledge that climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious threats humanity will ever face.”

On a local scale for us, first, it was typhoon Milenyo, then came Reming, then Seniang—all within a span of a month or two, and the last two typhoons within a week of each other. It was as if these superhowlers were trying to be in synch with the political storm that has been buffeting this be-stormed and benighted country these past months.

After the skies had cleared and the body count had begun there was the usual blame-throwing. To Phivolcs: Were the warnings loud enough and the mudslide-prone areas warned? To the local governments: Were the warnings relayed to communities concerned? To the residents: Why didn’t you heed the warnings? To despoilers and destroyers of forest covers: You must pay for the destruction you have wrought. And so forth and so on.



In the din of cries of grief and despair, amid the cacophony of fault-finding and blame-throwing and in the happy hum of the steady stream of aid that was pouring in, there was a little voice, inaudible almost, that rose. I don’t remember now who said it but I certainly heard it. The bigger enemy, someone said (I think it was a scientist who said it) is climate change. And it is bigger than the short-term solutions being presented on the ground.

Like, yes, we have natural weather occurrences that shouldn’t have resulted in such huge disasters if only… But these occurrences and their consequences are just raindrops when compared with the bigger global enemy that is climate change. Bigger in the sense that it affects the whole planet Earth and all its inhabitants—young and old, rich and very rich, poor and very poor, powerful and powerless…

It is bigger than politics and national boundaries, bigger than ideological, religious and ethnic strife, though, I might say, that all these human concerns also have something to contribute, directly or indirectly, to the meteorological problems of this planet. For the deadly wastes we send up to the atmosphere come down in a deadly way upon or heads and homes, on towns and cities, on hills and valleys. And it is mostly the poorest that are worst hit.

Father Sean McDonagh, author of many books on the environment and former resident of the Philippines, has come up with another book, his nth, “Climate Change: The Challenge to Us All.” Two years ago he wrote “The Death of Life: The Horror of Extinction”.

I have yet to get a copy of McDonagh’s recent opus but I learned that it got good reviews. I also received a copy of his essay “Climate Change: The Urgent Challenge to All”. I think “urgent” is the key word here.

Climate change has been in the international agenda since Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, McDonagh reminds. What has happened since then? Politicians have merely been paying lip service and have not confronted the problem because their advisers have thought the it would take probably 100 years before the effects of climate change would be felt, that these wouldn’t happened during their watch.

Well, many politicians and world leaders who were alive in 1992 are still around and they are seeing for themselves the drastic changes in the past few years.
In 2004, Sir David King, the chief scentific adviser to the British government said that “the problems arising from global warming are the biggest challenges facing governments.” McDonagh says scientists and scientific bodies around the word have since issued dire warnings about the effects of climate change on weather patterns, ocean habitats and flooding, biodiversity and access to potable water. Speaking of water, Metro Manila has been experiencing what waterless means, with a weather official hoping Seniang would blow into Central Luzon so the waters of Angat would be replenished.

It’s like choosing between a rock and a hard place, between death by drowning or death by thirst.

McDonagh says that Sir Nicholas Stern’s review of the “Economics of Climate Change” (published in Oct. 2006) constitutes the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in terms of making a cast iron case for aggressively addressing global warming. With a combination of political leadership, the proper mix of carrot and stick in carbon tax to reflect the true cost of energy and support for new technologies, we could avoided the worst in climate change, he says.

A low carbon economy, McDonagh suggests, will offer new possibilities for business that could run to billions of dollars per year. It can no longer be “business as usual” while we are experiencing drastic extreme weather conditions, melting ice caps, rising ocean levels and massive extinction of the species.

While the Bush administration has not signed the Kyoto protocol, a number of US states and cities are willing to sign a Kyoto-like protocol beyond 2012, and everyone wishes growing economies like China, India and Brazil would also sign up to limiting greenhouse gas emissions after 2012.

Climate change is not just a scientific and economic issue. It is a moral one.

Puta man o santa man

Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times. From the prehistoric times to the present, rape has played a critical function. It is a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.
-Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will

I used the above quote last year shortly after the rape of “Nicole” landed in the news and created a furor. I use it again now that a conviction has been made.

Puta man o santa man…. Whore or saint—neither one deserves to be raped. This has been playing in my head for days, before and after the decision on the Subic rape case and until now. At first I thought saying it in Filipino would sound too vulgar but I changed my mind when I read yesterday’s front-page news in the Inquirer.

No less than a bishop—Bishop Oscar Cruz—was lecturing women on how not to get raped, as if there was a way to get raped. As if rape could partly be women’s fault, as if they would have it coming and could bring it upon themselves because of their way of dressing or behaving. Because it is but natural for men to respond by raping? Come on. Hello? I could feel blood rising to my face.



I’m glad the Inquirer gave the quote prominence because it showed how many men, a bishop among them, still regard women, that is, as temptresses. “Womanhood is precious and noble, so it is not right for them to be flaunting it around.” That’s what the bishop said. Flaunt? Otherwise they could be raped? Should women be always fearful that the way they carry their womanhood could result in violence against their person?

Not that I approve of everything that women do with their bodies and of their distracting way of dressing in certain occasions. But I don’t wish that the celebrities who have three-fourths of their quivering mammary blobs exposed would be raped, mashed or groped. Sure, certain behaviors could have negative consequences. Like if you sit on a ledge of a building you could fall but this does not mean someone should push you to your death.

Rape is no longer a ``private crime.’’ The Anti-Rape Law of 1997 classifies rape as ``a crime against persons’’. For a long time rape was considered merely as ``a crime against chastity’’. This seemed to suggest that persons who were unchaste were fair game.

Defense lawyers who dredge up the sexual reputation of rape victims and cast aspersions on their morality to bolster their defense of the accused should know this strategy could boomerang on them.

Last year, when the Inquirer carried the banner headline that Nicole was not, repeat, not, a sex worker, women’s groups reacted strongly because the headline seemed to suggest that if Nicole was in fact one she was fair game. (The headline was a response to those who wondered what she was.)

The crime of rape should have nothing to do with the chastity of the victim. Rape is not merely a sexual offense or a crime against chastity but a crime against persons and against the State. As one feminist lawyer had said, ``Rape is not a crime against the hymen. It is a crime against the whole person.’’ It is a crime of the strong against the weak, a crime of conquest. Speaking of conquest, the Subic rape case took on a political color because the accused were citizens of a former colonizing nation who still throws its weight around.

Did you see that burly American who was throwing his weight around to shelter Lance Corporal Daniel Smith after his conviction? But our policemen were there to do their job. He even tried to stop the media from following in a car. I wish someone had yelled at him, “You, (@#&!*>) American, you are on Philippine soil!” I wish our police had pinned him down but they seemed intimidated. Dinaan sa laki.

Smith did not deny he had sex with Nicole, but it was consensual, he insisted. Well, that’s what rapists always say—that their victims wanted it and so why are they crying rape? That’s what 91-year-old American Jesuit Fr. James Reuter, a revered figure in these islands, is stressing again and again. That it was consensual sex as Smith alleged. This makes Nicole a liar. Had he talked to Nicole?

I find Reuter’s interventions so pathetic. The most he could have done was simply to listen to what Smith had to confess (whether or not Smith is a Catholic) and give it the seal of confession. In contrast, the Filipino Protestant pastor who had been regularly ministering to Smith and the other accused simply stuck to the spiritual and left the legal to the lawyers and the judge.

The other night there was this news on TV about a big box that was dumped beside the road. When a poor man opened it he found a whole human body inside it. That’s what the US servicemen did to Nicole. They dumped her on the pavement, with her pants worn the wrong way and with a used condom hanging somewhere. Is that how consensual sex is supposed to end? And then they zoomed off to their waiting ship like felons fleeing the scene of a crime.

What woman in her proper mind (Nicole was drunk) would consent to be carried out of a club on the back of a man and into a van, and in the presence of five or six other men, have sex with one of them while the vehicle was moving? And when it was over, be dumped on the side of the road, looking disheveled and dazed?

Last year Sen. Francis Pangilinan said that 3,000 rape cases against Americans have been dismissed in the Olongapo City court. Smith’s conviction in Makati is a first.
Congratulations to Nicole’s lawyers.

The essential Scholastican

What fruits had we tasted? What pearls had we found? What seeds had been sown in our young lives, and have they grown into great trees? What did we get, what did we give? What food, what richness, what strengths did we take along when we set out into the wilderness?

Did we discover the hidden wells and the orchards? Did we search for life among the ruins? Did we listen, did we speak? Did we laugh and did we weep? Did we hearken, did we heed? And as we journeyed on, who have we become—for ourselves, for others, for God?

Much have been given us and much is to be given back—and forward. The late Sister Caridad Barrion OSB, dean of St. Scholastica’s College for almost two decades, never tired of reminding generations of Scholasticans to give. Her mantra: “You cannot give what you do not have.”

And so we had to fill ourselves first, to drink, by drawing from the deep. To be steeped in a Benedictine tradition of learning for the heart, a way of life so ancient yet ever new. Ora et labora. Pray and work. And study too, for weren’t the Benedictine monks known since the fifth century to be keepers and spreaders of wisdom and knowledge, the bearers of light during the Dark Ages when barbarians threatened to destroy Western civilization?



St. Scholastica’s College marks its glorious 100th year on December 3. On Sept. 14, 1906 five German Missionary Benedictine Sisters arrived in Manila to become the pioneers of an institution of learning for women and girls. They had come to serve the poor but were disappointed when something else they had not expected was thrust upon them: the education of those who had relative material affluence and future influence. And so with typical German grit, they went to work--to teach, to shape, to mold, to discipline (sometimes too severely—and I should know) so that their wards would become “women of character”. Well, the pioneers did not come straight out of the Bavarian Kulturcampf for nothing.

Last Sunday, we launched “Daughters True: 100 Years of Scholastican Education, 1906-2006”, a great book that summarizes a century as distilled in the minds, hearts and lives of generations of Scholasticans. It is history, yes, for it serves up a lot, not just about St. Scho and its evolution, but the Philippine context as well. But it is more than just history, it is also a book of insights and experiences--sublime, hilarious, serious, unforgettable because true-to-life--delivered in so many ways by more than 60 Scholasticans from different corners of these islands and the world.

Scholasticans from across 100 years and from all walks of life shared the essence of their lives by drawing from their own life journeys. Five long major chapter essays (thematic) hold the book together and are spiced up by dozens of short scrumptious pieces and hundreds of vintage photographs (some to-die-for antiques) in duo tone. (Book size 8 by 11 in matte coated paper, more than 300 pages between hard covers.) Already several bookstores have called to inquire if they could have some.

You don’t have to be a Scholastican to appreciate the book. For it says a lot about culture, education, being Filipino, being Christian, being women and “daughters true”. How we become.

The major themes are the school’s history and evolution through the years, the different levels and their thrust, women’s education and empowerment, education for justice, Scholastican activism, Scholastican spirituality, the school’s neo-Romanesque and art deco architecture, the 36 outstanding Scholasticans (Pax awardees from 1979 to 2006, Pres. Corazon Aquino among them) who wrote some of the pieces.

But as I said, the short essays (even the lists) are the spice and garnish that make the book even more palatable. I do not like to pick out names and essays lest I be accused of favoritism. But I must mention the editors—Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, Paulynn Paredes Sicam, Karina Africa Bolasco and myself. Lynett Villariba, the Inquirer’s art and design director, gave the book a great look never before seen in books about institutions.

This book was four years in the making. It was the brainchild of then school president Sr. Mary John Mananzan OSB (now mother prioress) who made sure “Daughters True” became “daughters through”. Sr. M. Soledad Hilado OSB saw us through the 100 years with her sharp eye and solicitude.

I wrote one of the major essays, “The Essential Scholastican: The Roots and Fruits of Her Spirituality” which is not about spirituality above the clouds but on terra firma. It was wonderful to hear Scholasticans from all walks of life share their process of becoming. For what is spirituality if not (according to theologian Fr. Percy Bacani MJ) “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”?

Mother Irene Dabalus OSB sums up the ideal Scholastican thus: “God-grounded, God-enthralled, God-enamored, she swings into the lives around her and feels for the sufferings and struggles of others.”

This same life force, Mother Irene adds, is active in Benedictine education known for that combination of a passion for the truth in academic pursuits, and compassion shaped by a sense of community, prayer and service to others.

“This was all there in our college days, this vision of life which united a deep thirst for the Spirit and a grounding in God, and the work of calling forth the best resources in life, goodness and peace out of each one of us…and the whole of creation.”

Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus. That in all things God may be glorified.

Workers’ rights and garment labels

“Sr. Stella L.”, a 1984 multi-awarded Mike de Leon-Pete Lacaba film, was on cable TV a few nights ago. While watching it I recalled the hot afternoon we spent at a location where several strike scenes in that movie were shot. A bunch of us women journalists were there as extras shouting “Welga! Welga!” We did it for free. The shooting was in an old bodega-like place that was made to look like a cooking oil factory.

It was quite an outing, what with an award-winning bunch there—Vilma Santos playing Sr. Stella L., the late Tony Santos as Dencio, Laurice Guillen as the other Sr. Stella or the “tokayo”, Anita Linda and several “nuns” linking arms with the workers in the picket line. There was Sr. Stella L. emerging from her baptism of fire and delivering an impassioned plea on behalf of the strikers. And there we were, taking it all in under the scorching sun. It was like the real thing. We each had an orange drink after that.

What timing, I thought while I was watching it again after 22 years and waiting for the credits to roll so I could catch our names. For I had received an urgent call from the Workers Assistance Center (WAC) in Cavite. This was concerning the on-going strike at the Cavite Export Processing Zone (CEPZ). Unlike the “Sr. Stella L.” strike that was in a small local factory, the strikes at the CEPZ are in foreign-owned companies.

I went around CEPZ some years ago to do a labor-day series on the strikes there and to interview CEZ workers, particularly young women and how they lived. I visited some of them at their congested lodging houses where the lodgers took turns in using double-deck beds because, they reasoned, anyway they worked and slept in shifts. They didn’t have beds to call their own. One of the companies on strike was producing sacred images that were exported to Europe.



The ones on strike now since Sept. 25 are workers of two Korean-owned companies—Chong Won Fashion, Inc. and Phils. Jeon Garments Inc.—suppliers of garments of big and known companies abroad. The former supplies products to Gap, Wal-Mart, Target, American Eagle Outfitters, Mervyn’s and White Stag while the latter produces for DKNY, Hanes, Al-alseel, O/X, Dream Station, etc. Name it. You might be wearing some of the labels that came from the CEPZ.

Last week the Inquirer ran an editorial (“Condemned”) on the strike but the strike remains unresolved. In Chong Won Fashion, the strikers are raising the issue of unfair labor practices such as refusal to bargain, illegal suspension of union officers and members and discrimination of union officers and members on overtime affecting 210 union members and more than 700 contractual workers.

In Phils. Jeon Garments the issues are refusal to bargain, union busting, illegal dismissal of the union’s president Emmanuel Bautista. One hundred eighty five of the 400 regular rank-and-file employees are union members.

One of the interesting developments in these two strikes is the intervention of the big foreign firms for which the Korean companies at the CEPZ supply garments. By writing to Pres. Arroyo, these corporate entities are weighing in with the strikers. They are stressing their awareness of the importance of labor rights in their global operations.

Here are some familiar brand names and labels that you usually see on garments and product ads but which went (brand logo and all) to their representatives’ letter of appeal to the President. American Eagle Outfitters, Gap Inc., Jones Apparel Group, Liz Claiborne Inc., PVH, Polo Ralph Lauren and Wal Mart.

And here are excerpts from their common letter that say something about their corporate conscience.

“As companies buying apparel products from the Philippines, we write to bring your attention to a matter of urgent concern. As you know, there have been recent reports of alleged violent attacks on striking workers and the assaults and killings of labor rights promoters. Our industry is alarmed by such reports and urges your immediate attention to the situation. We are particularly disturbed about allegations that Municipal and Export Processing Zone police may have been involved in some of these attacks and assaults. In addition we are concerned about the reports that Export Processing Zone authorities have banned some striking workers from entering the CEZ.

“We urge your government to take proactive measures for ensuring the physical safety and for protecting the rights of workers and labor rights promoters.”

But the pleasant giveaway of their corporate values is this:

“As companies that seek to source in countries and from suppliers that share our commitment to ensuring respect for workers’ rights, we believe that local and human and labor rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can play an important role by partnering with manufacturers and governmental entities as well as suppliers and companies to help improve labor pratices and working conditions in the apparel industry. These NGOs should be able to express their views and carry out their legitimate role freely and without fear of violence.

“Additionally, we strongly believe that individuals working in factories that produce our goods must have the right to associate freely, join organizations of their choice and bargain collectively without unlawful interference. Workers should have the opportunity to work and live in an environment free from the threat of physical violence or harm.”

When you look at your garments’ brand labels, think of the labor rights of those who made them.