Ordinary Filipinos, extraordinary difference

A plug: Tomorrow, if you have the chance, go to the launching of the book “Profiles Encourage: Ordinary Filipinos Making an Extraordinary Difference” at 5 p.m. at the PowerBooks in Greenbelt 4 in Makati.

It’s a small book with a big heart and it features 11 “ordinary” Filipinos (nine individuals and a couple) who made a difference in their little corner of the world and tells about how this difference created ripples that reached and touched the lives of many. It is also about quiet heroism and courage, doing what needed to be done despite the odds. And yes, despite the age, the young age, of some of them.

The featured ordinary Filipinos are James Aristotle Alip (“A Small Loan that has Gone a Gong Way”), Al Asuncion (“Champion, Mentor, Friend”), Josette Biyo (“A Planetary Journey in Cell Stages”), John Burtkenley Ong (“A Man for Others), India and Javier Legaspi (“Weaving Heritage and Hope”), Jika David (“Breathing Life into Dreams”), CP David (“Paradox, Friend, and Builder of Dreams”), Nereus Acosta (“Making Sense Out of Making a Difference”), Onofre Pagsanghan (“A Lesson in Life, Passion, and Hope”) and Milwida “Nene” Guevarra (“The Power of Example”).

I read the book in one sitting. As diverse as the stories of these individuals are, one thing struck me: each one of them is a teacher, a teacher of life. And while not all of them do or did stints in the classroom, each one was able to teach and stoke fires the way only great teachers could. Because they shared the essence of their lives.



Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s words are aptly quoted in the introductory page. “The world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease…Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change…”

The book is dedicated to the late Raul S. Roco who had once asked: “What is it in the DNA of a young boy from Bulacan that tells us the Filipino is worth dying for?” He was referring to a lad who saved lives during a disaster and in the end had to give up his own.

The 10 stories tell us that the Filipino is also worth living for.

Alip set up a mocrofinance project that would “help the poor help themselves.” He scoured the horizon for sources of microloans and set up the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD). He wanted to give hope to a sector in society that is often overlooked.

Asuncion was already a retired boxer when he found his calling to become a mentor and friend to boys who were growing up to be men. His story is told by the accomplished, successful men whom he had mentored during their boyhood, men whose character he had helped mold.

Jesuit-educated Ong lived among the Mangyans and helped them with their ancestral domain claims. A hydro-geologist, Ong also helped the Mangyans find water sources. But he was not there as a technical man, he was there to teach and also to learn “to love and to serve.”

Couple India and Javier Legaspi brought back to life a people’s fine craft of weaving and made the world notice. This not only gave communities livelihood, this restored the people’s confidence and pride in their heritage.

And there is Josette Biyo, science teacher par excellence, after whom a planet has been named, the first Asian teacher to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award.

Humbled by the overwhelming love, compassion and sacrifice of Christ, Jika David realized the best way to show her gratitude and appreciation for what God had given her was to be a servant herself. She left her corporate job and joined the Jesuit Volunteers Program and taught in Palawan. She later formed the DORM (Deepening Our Rural Minds) Fund to help rural kids have access to good education.

There’s more. Get the book.

“Profiles Encourage” (Anvil, Anna P. Hidalgo and Alejandra Otamendi, eds.) is a project of the pagbabago@pilipinas Foundation, a cultural-social movement founded in 2002 for the radical transformation of Philippine society. The book is easy reading but I wish the pieces were more evenly written and edited. Some parts are rather choppy. Still the project is a step in the right direction. There should be more of this for the youth.

In this age of dazzling stars and upstarts being constantly hoisted up in the media firmament as idols, there is a need for alternative models with substance and vision, courage and commitment.

As former senate president Jovito Salonga said: “This is for the youth of the land, seeking exemplary role models and guideposts for service to others, in a world grown weary and cynical about moral leadership and good governance.”

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chair and CEO of Ayala Corp. describes the special individuals as “a significant group who have sought to sue their skills, stamina and vision to mark dedicated change to addressing (the) gaps in the social development landscape…They have brought qualities like professionalism, discipline, accountability and transparency.”

I say, these are the individuals who are quietly saving this nation from ruin, the leaven that is raising us to great heights, the genes that are improving the Filipino stock. They are God’s gift to us and to the world. To quote the Bard: “O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful…”

Time to set them free

In Aug. 2003, weeks before the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, I spent days at the New Bilibid Prisons interviewing the men who were convicted in the Aquino-Galman double murder case.

I had hoped then that after 20 years, one or several of the convicts would finally own up or make a revelation as to who ordered them to do what they did and lead us to the mastermind.

I got none of that for my three-part series. What I got was the men’s recollection of that fateful day in August, what they were doing when the shots rang out and what they did after the shots rang out. And of course, what the years behind bars had done to their personal lives and their families.

Except for Sgt. Pablo Martinez who, years earlier, had been trying to say something about his complicity but was largely and strangely ignored, the rest had nothing to say. Each one spoke for himself only—where he was, what he did and did not do.

Now, the prison doors are about to swing open so that these convicts could walk free. There is no loud uproar against their impending release. There are only regrets that no one else, other than Martinez, has given leads as to the mastermind.

Ninoy’s four escorts down the plane to the tarmac have always maintained that it was Galman who shot Ninoy. And those who peppered Galman with bullets insist they were just doing their job. ``Galman did it.’’ And not one of them as the court had ruled.



To refresh the memory, the 16 convicts in the Aquino-Galman murder case are:

Aviation Security Command (Avsecom) chief Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio (who died of cancer in prison); Capt. Romeo Bautista, Avsecom intelligence director; Sgt. Pablo Martinez, special operation squadron;

2Lt. Jesus Castro, leader of the boarding party composed of Sgt. Claro Lat, TSgt. Filomeno Miranda, Sgt. Arnulfo de Mesa, CIC Mario Lazaga, CIC Rogelio Moreno;

Sgt. Romeo Desolong leader of the SWAT Team Alpha that included Sgt. Ernesto Mateo, Sgt. Rolando de Guzman, AIC Cordova Estelo, Sgt. Ruben Aquino, Sgt. Arnulfo Artates and Sgt. Felizardo Taran.

Except for Custodio, Bautista and Martinez, the rest were members of
• the boarding party that led Aquino down the plane (one of whom, and not Rolando Galman, was supposed to have shot Aquino as he descended), and
• members of Team Alpha that was in the waiting SWAT van near the airplane. Members of Team Alpha gunned down Galman, loaded the fallen Aquino into the van and brought him to Fort Bonifacio.

Also, except for Custodio and Bautista, all came from the lowest ranks of the Armed Forces. The 20 other accused--high-ranking officials in the Marcos government and the military and some private individuals and John Does--walked free.

On Sept. 28, 1990, the Sandiganbayan handed down its decision finding the 16 men guilty and sentenced them on two counts to life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua. At that time the sentence was the maximum punishment under the 1987 Constitution until it was amended to bring back the death penalty.

The Sandiganbayan said then that the convicted men ``ought to be sentenced to the extreme penalty of death.’’

Twenty years after a crime was committed, new evidence cannot be used to charge anyone who may have been party to the crime--as long as the person was in the country during those 20 years. If the person is said to have spent time outside the country, the time spent abroad would not be included in the 20 years. The burden is on the accused to prove this was not true or that he was away for only so long.

Also, once a person has been charged within the 20-year period, the prescribed period no longer applies, a lawyer explained. The prescription period applies to suspects who, for fear of prosecution, went into hiding but stayed in the country for 20 years after the crime happened. After 20 years, unless they could be accurately pointed to as the John Does, they could come out of hiding and enjoy the sun. Or suspects, charged or uncharged, could stay on in another country where there is no danger of extradition and never come back--which is what some suspects in the Aquino-Galman case have done.

The guilty who are walking free should not rest easy. Other witnesses and participants in the crime, silent and fearing arrest all these 20 years, might just come out of the woodwork and make known the guilt of many.

The double murder case had been investigated by the Fernando Commission, then the Agrava Commission. The accused had been tried in the Sandiganbayan under Justice Manuel Pamaran and acquitted in 1985, during the time of deposed Pres. Ferdinand Marcos.

After Marcos was deposed and Ninoy’s widow, Corazon Aquino became president, citizens petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen the case. The case was again tried in a Special Division of the Sandiganbayan which convicted the 16.

As of today, the convicts have served 18 years (counting from 1990) plus the years they were in detention while they were being tried the first time and the second time—a total of more than 21 years. Reclusion perpetua or a life sentence is only 30 years and a double sentence is served simultaneously. Because of their life sentence, the convicts cannot apply to be released on parole but they could apply for either pardon or commutation of sentence.

But questions remain. Who were the brains? The conspiracy was so well laid out it could only have been plotted at the top. It involved persons with massive power and resources. And yet the convicts in the case are mostly underlings, small fry, who could only have acted on obedience and played their part in an elaborate plot they knew little or nothing about.

It’s time to set them free.

A cleaner year

The Christmas season ended last Sunday on the Feast of the Epiphany which is about manifestations of the divine kind. Don’t’ we hope to also see manifestations of the human kind, the kind that would ease the burden on the environment and us critters?

The garbage and the pollution that Christmas and the New Year had wrought should have eased up by now. (The holy season has become a dirty season.) It’s time to clean up. Clean up our surroundings and our insides. And let our singing of “and heaven and nature sing” become a reality.

There is hope for the flowers. Here’s some good news:

2008 Waste Trading Markets. The Philippine Business for the Environment (PBE), the Ayala Foundation and several big corporations are continuing the Waste Trading Markets where trading and buying of waste and junk take place.

Trade your scrap paper and cardboard for bathroom tissue, table napkins, bond paper and notebooks. Exchange your empty ink and toner cartridges for remanufactured ones. Your plastic bottles and plastic scraps could be exchanged for hangers, basins, pails and stools.

If you don’t want to trade, they will buy your junk electronic/electrical equipment (PCs, laptops, radios, etc.) and broken appliances; used lead acid batteries (from cars, UPS/voltage regulators, busted rechargeable lamps); used PET plastic bottles and other plastics; aluminum and tin cans; scrap paper and cartons; used ink/toner cartridges.



There are drop-off areas for polystyrene and styrofoam scrap, junk cell phones and cell phone batteries.

Venue and dates: Jan 11 and every 2nd Friday of the month (8 am to 3 pm, Goldcrest Car Park, Ayala Center); Jan 12 and every 2nd Saturday(SM San Lazaro); Jan. 18 (to be confirmed, Alabang Town Center); Jan. 19 and every 3rd Saturday (SM Southmall, Las Pinas); Jan. 25 and every 4th Friday (Trinoma, North Edsa, QC); Jan. 26 and every 4th Saturday(SM Fairview, QC, SM Davao City. Every 1st Saturday 8 am to 2 pm (SM Marilao).

To be very sure, please call PBE, 6352650 to 51 or email mypbe@yahoo.com.

I’ve been classifying my garbage for the longest time. All the wet biodegradables go to the compost area in my backyard and become fertilizer for my plants. All that the garbage collectors have to take away are the dry stuff—paper, plastic, etc. But I’ve always been hesitant to dispose of the hard gadgets (e.g., voltage regulators, cartridges, batteries) via the garbage trucks because I don’t know where and how they’ll end up. Yes, the Waste Trading Market would know where and how.

Shocking news:
The Inquirer has just come out with a three-part series on the polluted state of the Bulacan rivers that have become the dumping place and carrier of hazardous wastes. What a shock to know that the rivers of Obando, Marilao and Meycauayan (collectively called the Meycauayan river system) have made it to the world’s Dirty 30. What a dishonor for this historic province that cradled heroes and noble Filipinos.

So close to Metro Manila (a couple of its cities are in fact part of Metro Manila), and yet not quite part of the metropolis, Bulacan, or part of it, has remained pleasantly rural and bucolic to the eyes. Until one gets a whiff of that smell and beholds the rivers that are groaning under loads of toxic heavy metals. The tanneries and the factories are among the main culprits. Include local government officials who don’t care and play blind.

And I thought Bulacan was becoming a hub for green efforts. Years ago I did a long magazine feature on one man and a community’s effort to do something—in a big, innovative way, in fact—with the garbage in Sta. Maria, Bulacan (“Garbage Turns Green in Sta. Maria,” Sunday Inquirer Magazine). At that time, I thought, wow, Bulacan is going to show the way.

Luis R. Vargas, a balikbayan who had lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, came home to find the folks back home with the same sad refrain: garbage.

With lots of guts, basic science, technology and management, Vargas, concerned townsfolk and officials turned an environmental headache into warm, rich earth.

Vargas put up a composting plant where the town’s market waste went. The primary goal was not making organic fertilizer, although there was a demand for it. The goal was zero waste with fertilizer as the by-product. Incineration was out of the question.

Sta. Maria’s Waste Processing and Recycling Project was a joint effort of the municipality, Aware Inc. headed by Vargas and the Sta. Maria Economic Foundation headed by Dr. Roman Cucio. The mayor at that time, Reylina Nicolas, was supportive of the project.

Vargas’ Aware Inc. became the town’s garbage collector and for his heroic effort, Vargas could keep the garbage and turn it into green gold—organic fertilizer.

I remember going to the plant and smelling the rich smell of the earth. It was amazing to watch the stages—from garbage collecting to composting with the help of trichoderma to harvesting to bagging to marketing.

But this was also a business. Recycling for profit would have been easier than dealing with wet, smelly, biodegradable garbage but the latter has few brave takers. A balikbayan had to show how.

It’s time for me to find out what has become of that innovative venture.

Mercury! The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) features mercury and the problem it poses on the health care system and the environment.

PCIJ announces: “In its latest report on global mercury reduction, the International Health Care without Harm cites the Philippine experience as a model in switching to alternatives and creating policy solutions.” Log on to www.pcij.org.

‘The Peace of Wild Things’

One of the profound greetings I received for the New Year was the poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry, who is known as the prophet of rural America. Based in his Kentucky farm, Wendell, 74, is a well-known conservationist, poet, novelist, essayist, professor, lecturer, philosopher, Christian writer, farmer and defender of agrarian values and small-scale farming.

Feel and listen to the poem’s soothing message. You can’t go wrong with this.

“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Yes, the peace of all things wild. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field, locusts and wild honey that a man named John subsisted on in the wilderness while preparing for the great way, the carabao in the meadow, fireflies ablaze in the trees, the corals in the reef, the creatures in the forest, the music from without and within.

I soaked myself in Berry’s words, praying them, while breathing in the good, breathing out the toxic, saying to myself that all will be well with the world, myself and every one I cherish: family and friends, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances, teachers, inspirers, healers, news sources, readers-from near and far. Please, Lord, let it be. The best is yet to come.

With the saga of the Sumilao farmers and their battle with a corporate giant still very much in the news and the national consciousness, Berry’s words and thoughts become even more relevant.

You’ll find a lot on Berry on the Internet. Known as a strong defender of rural communities and traditional family farms, Berry has developed 17 rules for the healthy functioning of sustainable local communities:

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?

2. Always include local nature -- the land, the water, the air, the native creatures -- within the membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.

4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products -- first to nearby cities, then to others).

5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of “labor saving” if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.

6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.

7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.

9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.

10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.

11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.

12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old -- not necessarily, and not always, in school. There must be no institutionalized child care and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.

13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalized. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.

14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.

15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

More about Berry: “His nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to Berry, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life.”

The threats include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil, global economics, and environmental destruction. Berry is considered to be among the most eloquent of contemporary Christian authors, frequently referring to the Gospels, the stewardship of Creation, and peacemaking.

Berry quotes to remember:

“We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?”

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

A God-filled, God-drenched year ahead!

* * *

Healing priest does so ‘many miracles like in the Bible’

Philippine Daily Inquirer/FEATURE/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Filed Under: Mysteries, Diseases, Personalities, Belief (Faith), Good news

MANILA, Philippines -- He could not believe his healing power. He wanted to run away from it.

A Canadian woman declared dead eight hours earlier, her organs ready to be harvested and donated, suddenly opened her eyes after Filipino priest Fr. Fernando Suarez prayed over her.

Suarez, who was then a seminarian, was stunned. “Let me out of here,” was all he could say, ready to flee.

He was supposed to go and see the woman earlier but he was not able to make it in time. When he arrived at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in Canada, it seemed too late. But Suarez went to see her anyway and, surrounded by doctors whom he requested to be present, he prayed over the woman.

The miracle happened.

The woman is now well, Suarez says, and has resumed her normal life.

That case, which happened almost nine years ago, is probably the most stunning of all, but Suarez continues to amaze, baffle and bring hope and joy through his ministry that has seen the healing of countless sick and infirm in many parts of the world, including the Philippines.

“It is not me,” he says casually. He is convinced that he is just a channel for God’s healing power.

The soft-spoken Suarez, a 2007 TOYM (The Outstanding Young Men) awardee for religious service, projects an ordinariness that is both pleasant and endearing. His boyish looks do not easily reveal “what God has wrought” through him. He does not have an electrifying aura nor does he shriek and shout to slay evil elements like some Bible-thumping televangelists do. Suarez goes about it gently, in his own soothing way, touching, praying over people, pleading for healing. And because he wants everything centered in the Eucharist, he always begins with a Holy Mass.

Like in the Bible

Miraculous healing continues to happen. People who have been assisting him for some time have witnessed the impossible.

Businessman Greg Monteclaro of Couples for Christ-Gawad Kalinga has seen it all. “Except the raising of the dead,” he says. “But the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk -- all that is told in the Bible -- I have seen it happen.”

In Bulacan, Monteclaro narrates, there was this young boy who was born with practically no bones. “He was soft -- like jellyfish. I was holding him in my arms when Father Suarez prayed over him. I myself felt the bones grow inside the boy’s body and suddenly there he was --walking.”

How does one explain that?

“My own problem here is that I have seen so many miracles, it has become so common to me,” Monteclaro says.

Not that he is complaining.

Journalist and documentarist Bernardo Lopez has his own share of miracle stories to tell and he continues to use his video camera to capture moments that he hopes would convince many of what God is doing through Suarez. He has avidly followed the priest and has uploaded images on YouTube which have been getting thousands of hits.

Boy from Butong

Born in 1967 (he turns 41 in February) in Barrio Butong in Taal, Batangas, Suarez grew up like most boys. (Taal’s antique basilica is touted as the biggest in the Far East. It is also known for the miraculous Virgin of Caysasay.)

His father, Cervando, drove a tricycle and his mother, the former Azucena Mortel, was a seamstress. The eldest of four children (he has a sister and two brothers), he attended public schools.

“We weren’t a particularly religious family,” he says. “Our family attended Mass maybe three times a year.”

At an early age, Suarez already knew how to earn a living. At 12 he rented out inflatables at Butong beach.

Healing at 16

Something happened when Suarez was 16. He came upon a paralyzed woman and took pity on her. “Naawa lang ako (I took pity on her).” He found himself praying over her and suddenly the woman was walking. He did not know what to make of it and did not talk about it much. It must have been discomfiting to a lad his age. Looking back, it all seemed so natural. But at that time, announcing it to the world was far from Suarez’s mind.

What was beginning to concern him was the call to the priesthood or religious life. “I didn’t respond. I didn’t know a priest.” How, where, when? He was waiting for cues and signs, but until they came, he just lived one day at a time, pursuing what needed to be done. He kept the call to himself, nurtured it “until lumago (it flourished).”

Going to the seminary was not an immediate option. Suarez went to Manila and graduated with a chemical engineering degree at Adamson University which is run by the Vincentian Fathers.

Mary appears

After college, Suarez entered the Franciscan Order (Conventuals). “After one-and-a-half years, I left. Then I joined the SVD (Society of the Divine Word) but I was asked to leave after six months.”

It was there, at the SVD Christ the King Seminary that, Suarez says, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him. “She told me that I would go to a far away place which was cold and windy, and there proclaim the word of God.”

Suarez was in his late 20s when he met a French-Canadian student and tourist named Mark Morin who invited him to Canada and even paid for his fare. They could have been partners in a business venture but Suarez wanted to pursue the priesthood. That was 1996.

He again tried the Diocese of Winnipeg to study as a diocesan priest but again, it did not work out and he was made to leave.

“I was an expensive venture, they said,” he says, chuckling. “They’d have to spend four-and-a-half years on me.” They preferred already ordained Filipino diocesan priests who were seeking a life abroad.

Companions of the Cross

And then he met priests of the Companions of the Cross (a Canadian congregation founded in the 1980s) and here he has stayed since. Because he had had previous religious formation and studies in philosophy and theology, it did not take long for Suarez to be ordained.

“I was ordained in 2002 when I was 35,” he says, “and I am the only one who was assigned to go worldwide soon after ordination.”

His superiors were aware of and recognized his gift and set him free to reach out to the world.

“I was nonchalant about all these. There was no pressure. I acted upon obedience and not on what I wanted. Remember, I had kept this gift for 20 years,” he says.

Abroad

Suarez’s gift of healing first became known abroad and only later in the Philippines. He has visited many countries, some of them poor, like Uganda where he walked among refugees, orphans, people sick with AIDS, malaria and yellow fever and afflicted with evil spirits.

Fr. Jeff Shannon, who accompanies Suarez on his trips, recalls their bout with restless orphaned girls in Uganda.

“As they approached us for prayer after the Mass, they rested in the Spirit for hours, then cried, wailed and screamed as the Holy Spirit moved in to free and to heal [them]. After three hours of struggle they were delivered and they became as peaceful as doves, full of love. As they sang and danced their way back to their residence, they witnessed their dormitory light up inside, even though it was late at night and there was no electricity. One girl was healed of blindness.”

Miracle stories are recorded in the newsletter of Mary Mother or the Poor-Healing Ministry, a foundation Suarez established to help the suffering poor.

Mary Mother of the Poor

Eight years ago, while praying, Suarez had a vision where he saw Jesus pouring on graces upon him. He also saw poor children asking for help. He couldn’t understand the vision’s meaning at that time.

During a visit to the Philippines some years ago, 10 poor children approached him to ask for support for their studies. Suarez sent them money and as time went by, more support came from friends who shared his vision. Support came from Austria, Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, Italy, England, Switzerland, Uganda and the Philippines. This gave rise to the Mary Mother of the Poor Foundation (MMP) which aims to help the poor through better shelter, counseling and other programs, by coordinating with health and social services in order to help the sick and the aging, by teaching the tenets of the Catholic faith and by providing programs to help the youth become good citizens.

As high as Statue of Liberty

Soon to become the center of Suarez’s healing ministry is Montemaria (Matuko Point) in the outskirts of Batangas City. Set on a hill on 20 hectares of land, the center of the Oratory of the Blessed Virgin at Montemaria will have chapels, prayer gardens, Stations of the Cross, retreat houses, campsites, lodging houses, a center for the poor and even a replica of Mary house in Ephesus (ancient city in Turkey). The place is meant to draw pilgrims who want to renew their faith.

The Montemaria centerpiece is the 33-story-high statue of Mary Mother of the Poor which will be about as high as the Statue of Liberty and higher than Christ the Redeemer of Brazil. It will face the sea between Batangas and Mindoro, known to be one of the world’s richest in marine biodiversity.

The scale model was unveiled last August with Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles in attendance.

There are claims that the stones on Montemaria have caused healing for the sick and people have started going to the place to find out for themselves.

40-hour-vigil Jan. 11-13

Nestor Mangio, one of the architects and an avid supporter of Suarez, says the oratory is scheduled to be finished in September 2008. The project is not wanting in donors. In July, the Companions of the Cross, the congregation to which Suarez belongs, will put up a foundation in the Philippines.

A 40-hour vigil is scheduled from Jan. 11-13 and pilgrims are expected to come in droves. Suarez will be there.

And how does the healing priest relax? “I do sports, I love nature, I love talking to people. I read the spiritual classics -- St. Augustine, Francis de Sales. I also like Thomas Merton,” he says.

Has the surge of the crowds affected him? “Wala sa akin ’yun. (That’s nothing to me.)” He thinks people can easily approach him because “I am not threatening.” After Mass, he says, he prays and “this saves me.”

“I would like to think that after I’ve passed through this world, I’d have made a dent.”

For now, the words of Jesus to the suffering are enough to inspire him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).

(For more info visit www.fatherfernando.com or www.montemariashrine.com.)

Back-to-Christmas movement

If I were from another religion or another planet and I knew the Christmas story and how Christianity began I would be very shocked to see Christmas being celebrated with excessiveness, mindlessness, stressfulness. I would ask: how has Christmas come to this? This was not how it all began.

Simplicity has been supplanted by excess. It seems the Christ in Christmas has been x-ed. Xmas. X for excess. Xmall, Xmess. Oh, we say, but we know Christmas is alive, one just has to wade through the X-cess to find the true essence. But why must this be so?

Toxic toys, double-dead meat, smuggled goods, horrendous traffic, Christmas blues, piles of garbage, overcrowded shopping malls, desperate gift-givers, overeating, excess cholesterol and sugar, clogged airports and bus terminals, the culture of gift and cash solicitation (messengers, garbage collectors, strangers, barangay personnel leaving you envelopes into which you must put in money), and so forth and so on.

These are some of the negatives of the Christmas season that needn’t be there. How is it that Christmas is the time when the gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider than wide, with the latter feeling the pain of being on the other side of the railroad tracks? The lonely get lonelier, the hungry feel hungrier, the outcast feel like castaways indeed.



If Jesus walked the streets and malls incognito to see how his birthday is being celebrated today and to feel the overall mood of the majority, would he be happy? Your guess is as good as mine.

Would he be happy with the churches, institutions and movements that are propagating the Christian faith? Have they fulfilled their role to preach, lead by example and draw people back to where it all began? Have they succeeded in making the Christmas celebration truly meaningful, simple and memorable? Or are they, too, being drawn to the malls?

Masses are now celebrated in malls in order to spare the shoppers and employees an extra trip to their churches. The Catholic churches have conceded to the malls and are wooing back their parishioners in the malls. Worship becomes a side trip, an afterthought. So convenient, like going to a convenient store.

This is a better scenario: It used to be, and it is still the case now in some places, that it was the vendors and commercial establishments that went to the churches’ vicinity to ply their trade. Take the case of Baclaran and Quiapo. Here worship and prayer are the church-goers’ main purpose, shopping is the side trip. And so the churches there could always say, “We were here first.” (It is the local governments’ job to put order in the chaos outside the churchyard.)

I am not making a judgment on the spiritual fervor and priorities of the shopper-worshipper or the worshipper-shopper. I am just making an observation. And I am not condemning malls and their role in the economy and the role of advertising in marketing and commerce.

But one can’t help wondering if (or feel sorry that), because of the frenzy to sell and to buy for the Christmas gift-giving, the Christmas story has perhaps simply become a small side story to be told like a fairy tale accompanied by twinkling lights and artificial snow fall and elves and reindeer hurtling across the sky. The wonder and the headiness that such a scene induces are often what remain. Not “Away in a manger no crib for a bed…” and what really happened and why.

The first Christmas needn’t have been a stark scenario, what with the angels singing, a bright star shining, wise men bringing gifts and shepherds a-visiting, and heaven and nature singing. Some good and wise women must have come too. A special birth such as Jesus’ was cause for rejoicing—and also cause for worry for the powers-that-be at that time. Soon it was time to flee.

When you look at the way that birth is being celebrated now, one wonders where the Bethlehem scene is in all the fuss and frenzy.

And there isn’t a grand, concerted effort to stop the deterioration of Christmas. There isn’t a back-to-Christmas movement of some sort that I know of.

There is the Slow-Food Movement that is meant to counter the unhealthy fast-food culture and to bring back the joy of healthy home cooking. There are so many organizations and movements all over the world promoting organically-grown food minus the toxic pesticides. There is back-to-nature, back-to-natural, back-to-basics, back-to-this-and-that, etc. and the people behind these are really walking their talk, living out what they preach in a concerted way and convincing others to do the same.

Is anybody out there bringing up Christmas? I know the churches keep preaching about it. But I have yet to hear of a group or movement with an identity or a name that is going against what Christmas has become.

And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and hea-heaven and nature sing! I love that portion from the carol “Joy to the World” because it is inclusive. Jesus came to redeem not only humankind but the whole of creation. Trumpets blare when that portion is sung or played, giving you a heady feeling.

Be kind to nature especially this Christmas and pre-New Year season. Let nature sing—and not groan—by managing your holiday garbage. Segregate, segregate, segregate. If you can make compost out of your organic waste so much the better. This would lessen the putrefaction and decay on the sidewalks. Do not burn and add to the pollution. Christmas should also be nature’s best moment.

Let’s bring back the true essence of Christmas through our lives. Greetings of Joy and Peace to all!

If the land could weep and sing

Well, what can I say. Weeping has turned into rejoicing. Day is breaking all over the land. Joy comes in the morning. If there should be weeping, the weeping should let flow tears of joy.

For the farmers of Sumilao who marched 1,700 km. for two months from Bukidnon to Manila under scorching heat and driving rain are finally seeing a glimmer of hope. That the disputed 144 hectares would be theirs once again, wrenched at last from corporate hands after years of weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of the farmer-awardees.

But there were will be some waiting to do even after President Arroyo authorized that the land that had been reclassified as agro-industrial, be reverted back to agricultural land covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

With the backing of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and civil society groups but minus the disruptive flag-waving of hard-core ideological elements, the farmers should be on their way back to their promised land.

Nine years ago, I wrote the column piece below. I fished it out from my files some days ago when I thought the Sumilao case would again turn awry, because for a while it looked that way. Anyway, here it is as a remembrance of things past and I hope I never have to rub it in again.

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If the land could weep, it would weep rivers. It would not weep for those who fawn and faint over it, or for those who fling themselves on it while frenziedly clutching straw and stones to throw at each other and the darkening sky. What a shame. If the land could grieve, it would grieve for itself.

If the land could weep, it would weep for itself. It would not weep for the whining people who call themselves rightful landowners, who call themselves heirs to the yawning vastness simply because their fathers begot them and their mothers writhed in pain to push them out of the darkness of their hemorrhaging wombs. For why should the land waste its tears on those who have not grasped the meaning of land, the essence of the earth whence they sprang?

If the land could weep, it would weep for itself. It would not weep for those who spend precious time, talent and treasure in order to claim, reclaim and proclaim ownership of that which is supposed to be eternally ownerless. For as a slain sage had said, ``How can you own that which will outlive you?''

If the land could weep, it would not weep for those who lose much sleep deciding whose side they should take on the issue of who must till the land and make it yield flower and fruit. For why must they be sleepless and go around displaying the bags under their eyes when it has been written somewhere that a certain class of people, blessed and poor they are called, are just as qualified to inherit the earth?

If the land could weep, it would weep for itself. It would not weep for those who warm benches and sit hunched on their desks, figuring out how to dispense justice based on precise legal points and technicalities. Their brand of justice, if dictated by a thousand books alone, would be as nothing, it would be only as useful as the straw is for the bonfire. It bursts into a blinding blaze and then is no more. For why waste tears on those who work hard and earn good money, who think of themselves redeemed by their worship of the law?

If the land could weep, it would weep for itself. It would not weep for those whose grand plans for the land are stalled and who panic over the possible demise of their dreams because there exist people who need a share, who have simple plans and simple dreams. It would not grieve their possible loss for nothing could possibly be lost.

If the land could weep, it would not weep for the government officials who play God and preside over the fate of the land and its tillers, who overturn just decisions to favor the rich and mock the poor. It would not weep over the festering sores on their souls and the rudeness of their actions. It would not cry out for their redemption, but neither would it weep over its damnation.

If the land could weep, it would not weep for the hungry landless who make themselves hungrier still with their protests. For why weep for them when tears are not what they need? What they need is the justice of God and the justice of Her creatures. For as someone had said: ``It is by justice that we bring together the broken, neglected, cut-off, impoverished parts of the universe to render them whole again.''

If the land could weep, it would weep for itself because people are killing each other for it, spilling blood and guts on it, defiling it with their foul spit. It would weep rivers because its rivers have become as dry as the soul of those who claim ownership of it by virtue of words written on paper.

It would weep because they stick iron rods on pregnant fields in order that they may yield more, more--not succulent fruit and fragrant flower, but more money. Because they do not get it. Because they build fences and enclosures to ward off the so-called wretched of the land who want a little share.

If the land in Sumilao could weep, it would weep for itself and the Mapalad farmers whose rejoicing quickly turned into despair when the Supreme Court nullifed the Ramos “win-win solution” that would have given the farmers a just share of a disputed land. It would weep because the decision would pave the way for the conversion of productive agricultural land to a non-agricultural estate...

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With their imminent victory, the farmers should march home singing, “And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing…” If the land could sing, it would sing, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace to all humankind.”