He sees dead people & they confess to him

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

At three o’clock in the morning, while the world sleeps, troubled souls rouse this priest to relay important messages or confess their sins so they can move on gently and finally to eternity. The otherworldly messengers include Navy officer Phillip Pestaño who came back to tell the world that his death was not a suicide as some officials would have us believe. Another group of souls gathered by the priest’s bedside and told him they were victims of the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.

The apparitions initially puzzled Fr. Efren Borromeo of the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity (SOLT). Affectionately called Fr. Momoy by Bicol folk, he thought it was just one of those things. “I was reluctant to recognize it,” he says. “I know saints have soul visitations, but I am not a saint!”

Ghostbuster, spirit questor or saint, the label doesn’t matter. People whose lives he has touched agree that Fr. Momoy has the gift of healing the sick and seeing souls. He also has the ability to see through human bodies and reveal with uncanny accuracy what ails those who consult him, just like the radiology method called MRI or magnetic resonance imaging.

Though not a medical doctor, Fr. Momoy has basic knowledge of the human anatomy and is in fact, on his way to becoming another kind of doctor. He is finishing his dissertation for a doctorate degree in cosmic anthropology at the Asian Social Institute in Manila.

His cosmic encounters do not scare him, Fr. Momoy confides. In fact, he considers them a nuisance. “I would ask, why do you have to come for confession? Why don’t you go direct to heaven? Nakakaistorbo kayo (You guys are a bother).” But the souls continue to turn up at all hours of day and night. “That’s why I can’t drive,” he says. “I see dead people.”

One group he couldn’t just ignore because of their sheer number showed up in the dead of night. “Who are you, why are you so many?” he had asked. They were, the apparitions answered, the victims of the Maguindanao massacre. (In that November 2009 tragedy, 58 people, most of them media practitioners were brutally killed and buried in shallow graves. The main suspects, the members of the Ampatuan political clan, are now in jail and on trial.)

“I was very tired then so I told them to go, and instead visit the one who had them killed,” Fr. Momoy recalls. “A few days later, I read that one of the alleged perpetrators of that massacre was reportedly being haunted and was asking for a change of room.” He laughs at it now.

Some years ago when the TV game show “Deal or No Deal” was running, Fr. Momoy realized that he could see the contents of the attaché cases that participants were to choose from. For seven nights he followed the show and saw which case had the plum prize in millions. Why didn’t he join then? “That would have been unfair advantage,” he says. “And I might lose my gift.”

Was the gift always there? How did he even know he has it?

“I was born a breech baby,” the 60-year-old priest says. “Those born feet first are believed to have the ability to dislodge fish bones stuck in people’s throats.” The boy Momoy was always called upon for such cases. His grandmother was a hilot or practitioner of indigenous healing. When a locust infestation hit their town in Albay, he was asked to try driving the pests away and he did. There was something about the boy, his father had said.

The youngest of five sons of the late Ernesto Borromeo and Felicitas Bragais, now 93, Momoy was born in Ligao, Albay. “We were not well-off so on weekends I would sell candies and newspapers,” he narrates. “I was sickly and would sometimes be in hospital. My uncle, a doctor, had syringes that I would play with. At home, I would inject the dogs and cats. I had invisible playmates.”

It was not until he had grown in age and grace that his special abilities became more evident.

Fr. Momoy vividly recalls that in 1966, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, something happened that would change his life. A deranged man stabbed to death Fr. Jose Guerrero, the parish priest in Ligao town, while he was visiting the sick in a hospital. “When I heard the pealing of church bells, I just knew he was dead. There was thunder and lightning. I was devastated.”

At a church meeting held after the burial, parish officials stressed that the town would have to replace the dead priest with one of their own to offset a curse. “Ligao at that time had not produced a priest of its own for 16 years,” Fr. Momoy says. He decided it was going to be him.

He reflects: “Hindsight shows that my fiat, though tainted by misplaced guilt, opened doors to mystery. Almost immediately I experienced a lifting of my serial illnesses. If Saul had to be stricken off his horse to be transformed, I had to be drawn to my own calling by the village in need of a substitute offering – not a scapegoat, I hope!”

His motive may not have been the purest in the beginning. “I saw it as an opportunity to study. In our family, I was the only one who finished college. When my parents objected, I said, it’s the seminaryo or the sementeryo.” Off Momoy went to the St. Gregory Minor Seminary in Legazpi City in Albay, and later, the Holy Rosary Major Seminary in Naga City.

“I was never really sure of my priestly vocation,” Fr. Momoy muses. “In college at the Divine Word University, I was drawn into political activism. After finishing AB Philosophy, I took a leave to think things over.”

While doing his summer apostolate, the seminarian met Fr. Thomas Gier of the SOLT congregation. “I came, I saw and was conquered,” he says. He was a step away from ordination when he proceeded to the SOLT novitiate in Albuquerque in New Mexico in the US. In 1979 Fr. Momoy was ordained by Bishop Teotimo Pacis at the St. Stephen’s Church in Ligao.

Fr. Momoy ministered to the ailing during his brief stay in his congregation’s hospice for AIDS patients in Bangkok. Later, as a parish priest in a remote island in Bicol where there were no doctors, he ministered to the sick. “I carried around a priest’s sick call kit that also contained a stethoscope and other medical paraphernalia. I had even assisted a woman in labor.”

He discovered the wonder of coconut water and made a sugar-salt-water solution for dehydrated patients. Holy water and oil were for the sacraments. In fact, he muses, it was when he was administering the sacraments that his gift of healing slowly came to the fore. And through all these, he says, “I also realized in a special way na pari pala ako (that I was a priest).”

But he had yet to see something dramatic happen before his eyes.

“Once I was called to go to a communist-occupied mountain area. When I arrived, the men who were making a coffin said that I had come too late. I went to the dying man and anointed him. I saw many people surrounding him. After I was done, I saw only three people standing.” The rest who had vanished turned out to be souls. The man died. Or so everybody thought. Recounts Fr. Momoy: “I was about 100 meters away when I heard a commotion. The dead man had come back to life! He is still alive today.” (A TV crew tracked the man down not too long ago.)

Fr. Momoy had his own near-death experience. In 1994, while traveling from Manila to Bicol, pranksters threw stones at the vehicle he was in. “I was hit on the right eyebrow. I felt pain. This was followed by an indescribable feeling. Then I saw myself outside the car looking at my bloody self. I asked, is this it Lord? It’s up to you.”

His companions cried, “Si Mamo, wala nang pulso [Mamo has no pulse]!” After about seven minutes in that blissful state, Fr. Momoy’s spirit reunited with his body. “I was so angry with God for bringing me back.” Another strange thing happened immediately after: He found himself in a doctor’s house that had no signage on it and without anyone giving him directions.

After this episode, Fr. Momoy’s “20-20 vision” of internal organs became sharper. It also erased his self-doubt. “At first I thought seeing souls were just part of being a priest,” he says. He even went to Fr. Jaime Bulatao, SJ, a well-known clinical psychologist and expert on the paranormal, for affirmation, and consulted with two bishops and some friends who assured him that he was sane.

Since then Fr. Momoy has been meeting the souls of dead priests, bishops and ordinary folk, some of whom he doesn’t know. The communication is not verbal. He says, “God’s hand is not shortened by death and (continues to) reach souls in need of forgiveness. His mercy is indeed forever.”

One case that helped affirm Fr. Momoy’s gift of seeing was that of Navy officer Phillip Pestaño who died in 1995 under mysterious circumstances. Military officials ruled out foul play and said it was a suicide but Pestaño’s family believed otherwise. Lawyer Felipe Pestaño, Phillip’s father writes: “A priest, a complete stranger out of nowhere, came to see us at Phillip’s wake. Accompanied by a nun who was a distant relative, he revealed that Phillip had asked him to convey a message: ’Tell my parents I did not commit suicide.’”

Fr. Momoy told the Pestaños that for the first time, someone from the other life was asking him to do something. Phillip had appeared to the priest three times. In his written account, Phillip’s father says he was incredulous even though the priest described in detail how his son was killed. It was when Fr. Momoy described Phillip’s character and personality – without having met him at all – that the older Pestaño finally believed him.

Three years later, at a Senate hearing, a forensic expert who had done work on the O.J. Simpson case gave his own description of how Phillip was murdered. It matched Fr. Momoy’s account. According to Phillip’s father, the Senate ruled that the murder was not committed by just one man.

Fr. Momoy reflects: “Are my ’spirit guests’ on a mission on their own to prod me to minister to their grieving kin for whom the other life is totally disincarnate? Let me now continue viewing these spirit guests without a fearful ego.”

Fast forward to the present. Fr. Momoy presides at the Trinitas Integrative Healing Ministry Center under the SOLT in Bonga, Albay. He also does “hospice work” by visiting the sick and the dying in their homes.

Many have experienced healing, among them, Helen Alvarez who at 92 was diagnosed to have Alzheimer’s. Distressed, her daughter Mila A. Magno, asked Fr. Momoy to regularly pray over her mother. He was the family’s house guest in Canada. One day, to everyone’s surprise and joy, Helen emerged from the mist, regained her memory and was again her usual happy self. “Mama lived five more happy and productive years with us before she succumbed to congestive heart failure,” Mila attests. “Up until her death at 97, she remembered everyone by name.”

Although Fr. Momoy does not accept payment, he welcomes donations for the maintenance of the healing center in Albay and his ministry for the poor. He adds sheepishly, “Manay Mila (Magno) gave me an iPad.”

In conducting healing sessions, Fr. Momoy would rather not wade into crowds. He prefers small groups so that he can attend to every individual in a special way. He asks a group of 10 to come forward and scans each patient with his “MRI eye.” He verbalizes what he sees while the rest lay their hands on the patient and pray. Those waiting for their turn are led in prayer and reflection by volunteers and those who have experienced healing.

“This is also a time for evangelization,” says Sr. Sonia Punzalan of the Religious of the Cenacle. A certified teacher of zen meditation, Sr. Sonia is convinced of Fr. Momoy’s gifts and regularly assists him. “Sickness and death offer spaces for finding God in all things, and seeing the world as charged with grandeur! I reiterate Fr. Momoy’s basic orientation: ’There is no space without God.’ As certified Zen teacher of Sanbo Kyodan school, Kamakura, he presents with power the koan: ’Medicine and disease cure each other.’”

Because of his academic background, Fr. Momoy is able to explain the healing phenomenon and articulate it in anthropological, biblical and spiritual terms. His doctoral dissertation is a treasure trove of “eidetic” insights. The priest encourages the “healees” to write down their experiences and reflections so that others may learn from them.

The testimonies, he says, “have challenged my incredulity and made me conscious of my own biases and theological baggage. Gradually, I learned to approach patients, their faith rubbing off on me, not in my own terms but in theirs – their dreams, fears, pains and joys. The shift to the inner realm of the heart is like treading holy ground, and there’s no other way but to go unshod.”

Amazed at his gifts, some noted persons in both the academic and spiritual fields have closely examined Fr. Momoy’s ministry. Zen practitioner Ricardo Gonzalez writes that the healing in Trinitas “is actually (a) quantum mechanics phenomenon.” This means that changes occur via the observer effect, “where a thought is believed to carry an energy force that can influence events and conditions within the physical world.”

Himself a zen practitioner, Fr. Momoy spends an hour in zazen or what he calls in Filipino, pahingalay before healing sessions. He also asks the people to pray over him. “Again, moments before the actual healing, I go into silence, somewhat like a moment of egolessness.” In this state, he says, “There is no longer a separation between healee and myself. For sweeping over me is not just the patient’s pain but also his doubts, resentments and fears. I am so soaked in the experience of oneness such that inner/outer, psycho-emotional/physical separation is non-existent. Then, in an instant, I snap out of that realm and go on with the healing session.

“As the next patient steps forward and whispers his or her health concern, I am brought to a state where words cease to stay on a verbal thinking level. The person becomes a dynamic trigger for images of ailing cells, tissues, organs and systems.”

Dubbed a “Christian Babaylan” by the Baylans of Maramag, Bukidnon, Fr. Momoy says the indigenous rite he went through with them seemed “to open doors that made it possible for me to flow easily through different levels of consciousness. Based on co-gnosis – seeing directly the ailing organs without having to rely on lab reports – whenever the gift floods me, without hesitation, I can now confidently describe the behavior, size, color of tissues and organs. On occasion, the medical doctor assisting me pushes in my hand anatomy charts. I leaf through the pictures and point to the organ in question.”

Fr. Momoy enthuses, “It is with awe and gratitude that I feel the grounding effect of this spirituality shrouded in mystery of grace upon grace. Einstein’s famous words echo in my heart: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious. It is the source of all true science.’” •

Fr. Efren Borromeo holds healing sessions at UP Delaney Hall on Monday mornings when he is in Manila. The Trinitas Healing Center is in Bonga, Albay.

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                              Priest claims, 'she has already died'

You could say this woman is “tough as leather,” the material she uses to accent her internationally acclaimed Cora Jacobs handbags made of native palm.  With her international experience in designing for the great fashion houses of Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Givenchy, she has become known as the pioneer of Philippine handbag design. Cora Jacob rode the swell of business success in the 1980s but has also weathered major storms and upheavals in her incredibly colorful life.

Almost two decades into her business, Cora was forced to close shop because of failing health.  Of her healing journey, Cora writes:

“I remember 1997 as a very stressful period in my life. I was on top of everything-overseeing manufacturing, distribution and retailing. Eventually, the stress took a toll on my health. I was diabetic and losing my eyesight. There was no way I could continue in that way. I had a thousand workers in my factory and some more subcontractors in the depressed areas of Manila. I simply paid everybody and told them I could not support them anymore.

“One afternoon, Dr. Celina Guerrero and her husband, an oncologist practicing in Hawaii, dropped by to introduce their friend, Sr. Sonia. I was to check in at the hospital for surgery on my carotid-a bad case of occlusion. Forthwith we prayed for courage.

“My luggage had been packed for the hospital, but Sr. Sonia convinced me to go see a clairvoyant, Fr. Efren Borromeo in a small chapel in Fairview.  A second opinion would do no harm so my husband and I decided to give it a try.

“Christmas season that was. The ride to Fairview took us a couple of hours. Fr. Efren was in the confessional. Ah, so Sister wanted me to go to confession before the hospital procedures!
“When we saw the last penitent signing himself with the cross, we dashed to the priest as fast as our feet could take us. After we had introduced ourselves, Fr. Efren blurted by way of greeting, ’What business have you got going around like this?!’ He put his hand over my eyes, then my neck.

“Right after our confessions, my husband got exceedingly perplexed when Fr. Efren whispered to him privately: ’Do you know that your wife has already died?’  To me, he said, ’Cora, you have yet a mission in this new life given to you.’

“To my surprise, I in turn could see through him. ’Something seems to be wrong with your stomach, Father.’ Laughing cheerily, Fr. Efren said, ’Yes, this is where all the negative energies of healees go.’

“Three days after this strange encounter, I went for an angiogram. It confirmed that I had total occlusion, and three main arteries were blocked. The doctors were extremely puzzled. Why was I walking about when clinically I should be either dead or comatose and a vegetable?
“I stayed 10 days in the hospital. To this day, no one can explain how I can still do all the things I’ve been doing-and more. I spent the next two years following Fr. Efren around in his mission.  I even spent a whole year teaching inmates at a jail how to make waste baskets and other home accessories.”

Cora, on the basis of laboratory findings, technically remains blind. Yet for more than 10 years now, she has been designing bags and accessories which she showcases in major cities of Europe and the United States.  Amazingly, she not only continues her artistic endeavors but is also able to read auras-a gift she claims she has discovered during her first session with Fr. Momoy.  “Payback time!” she terms it, adding, “I can’t believe that indeed I am now on the mission band of Fr. Efren!”

Plagued with diabetes and a kidney problem, Cora remains undaunted. She has worked her way back to the world of design, feeling refreshed, strong and fearless. “Two years of blindness saw the strengthening of my relationship with the Lord. With that, I have no more fears. I went through great failures so I have learned my lessons and managed to get up again.  I feel I’m starting my life again, except now I have the wisdom of past experiences and a greater faith in God’s will.”#

7 billion stories

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

After the official announcement by international population experts that the number of human beings living on Planet Earth reached the seven billion mark on Oct. 31, 2011, after events have been staged and symbolic 7 billionth babies have been presented, photographed and assured of a good future, after the number crunching has been done and pop population puzzles have been created and solved (e.g., it will take 200 years for one person to count aloud from 1 to 7 billion, that is, if he or she lives that long)… what now?

There are many sites on the Internet that tackle the “7 billion” watchamacallit. Is it a phenomenon, a problem, a feat, a failure? National Geographic (NG) has come out with a series on the “7 billion” during the past months. If you are a subscriber you would have a billion interesting stuff to read.

NG and Apple’s iTunes have even come up with the free “7 billion app,” an application that would allow you to browse, read, listen to and watch so many things related to the “7 billion” so-called. But this could only be done on an iPad. iTunes alone on your PC or laptop would not work. And since I do not have an iPad, I could not tap into the breathtaking stories, photos and graphics. I clicked what were clickable and got a good idea of what it was all about.

But there are other interactive sites on the “7 billion,” like the one offering syllabi for school teachers and two-minute video contests for the young. (The majority of winners showed their worry about water supply.)

One site, called “7 Billion Actions” was put up by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). One of its features is “7 Billion Stories” that invites everyone to share their stories (and a photograph, of course) and what they could do to make this world of 7 billion a better place.

The stories (600 characters maximum) are heartwarming, inspiring and spontaneous. I found several from the Philippines. You could add yours. Don’t be shy to shout from the rooftops and tell the world about what you do. The crooks of this world strut about with impunity and even brag about their stealing rights, so why hide the good that you do under a bushel? Your story is your digital pledge on cyberspace.

The come-on: “Around the world, individuals are taking positive, meaningful action to make the world a better place. Teachers, doctors, government officials, parents… people everywhere are contributing in personal, unique and innovative ways to a global movement for all humanity. 7 Billion Stories is a collaborative initiative to collect and distribute these stories of people making a difference. By sharing your story, you can inspire others to get involved and take action in helping for a better world. You can also search for—and connect to—people whose stories of change are similar to yours.”

Already, the stories and photos are forming a mosaic, a hopeful global map of the future. And so I got tempted to add my own, with a photo showing the stunning Mayon Volcano in the background.

Here are some stories:

I am an environmentalist. I travel from north to south of the Philippines to see the effects of climate change. One of the most important factors in the restoration of our environment is the concern of the tribal communities for their natural habitat. I travel by foot, by boat, by ship and airplane to make an awareness program for tribal people to understand their relevance and responsibility to preserve their habitat.—Mary Jane Molina, Philippines

I am working to be a sustainable world-citizen. Working as a technical trainer for a large software company, I want to realize my dream of using technology to enhance the lives of the underserved populations of the world. Instead of leaving to work for a non-profit, I was able to create a new role for myself with the help of my employer, as an online community advocate and technical evangelist. So now I get to help a large community of developers and business experts apply their skills to topics of social responsibility and sustainability concerns. I have the backing of a corporation and work with an inspiring development community.—Marilyn Pratt, USA

I am a world citizen. As a person who believes in the equality of all individuals, regardless of any kind of discrimination, I teach children who have limited access to education. I believe that as the awareness grows, we will have billions of hopes toward a better planet for billions of people.—Ayla Deniz, Turkey

I am a new mother and afraid… My beautiful daughter Iris Eliza Hornsby was born on the 29th March 2011 and is almost 7 months old. 7 billion people scares me, because my precious baby is only one of these, so small and insignificant like an ant, but yet I want her to find her own place in this huge, frightening, confusing world of ours and to make a difference, somehow, if that is still possible. I am 30 years old and sometimes I feel there is no hope left, yet I can’t let my daughter see how cruel a world we now live in.—Rowan Martin, UK

I’m known on social media as “GhanabaKwamena,” a score-and-one-year-old activist, music & social media freak…lols. Ever since my exposure to development issues of young people as a member of Curious Minds Ghana (Children and Youth in Broadcasting) in 2008, I have lived, eaten, dreamt, talked and walked ADVOCACY together with other young advocates in my country Ghana. I blog on any development issues worth addressing that I come across—using media (including Social Media) to effect Change. Every week my friends and I are on national radio to advocate for young people!—Cecil Dadzie, Ghana

Log on. It’s cool.

                                                                 * * *

On November 6, read a glossier, thicker Sunday Inquirer Magazine. It now comes out every first Sunday of the month.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com.

Martyrdom is cinematic

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

When I learned of the killing of Italian missionary Fr. Fausto Tentorio on Oct. 17 in Arakan Valley in North Cotabato, my thoughts went back to the killing of Fr. Tulio Favali in 1985. I still have the human rights postcard that shows a bloodied Favali, his brain splattered on the ground.

Father Tentorio, 59, fondly called Father Pops, was the third priest belonging to the Pontifical Institute for the Foreign Missions to be gunned down in Mindanao. He was laid to rest yesterday, with some 10,000 people seeing him off, many of them lumad (indigenous people) whom he served for more than 30 years. There were many stirring images there that, I hope, might someday inspire someone to make a movie or documentary of it. So unchoreographed, but so cinematic.

And so my thoughts also went back to the 1986 movie “The Mission,” directed by Roland Joffé, which I had watched several times. I loved the movie so much that I had to get the movie’s sound track by Ennio Moriconne. A few days ago I dug up my 1986 Sunday Inquirer Magazine write-up on the movie (“The Mission: International cinema’s last dinosaur”) which had Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons in major roles as Jesuit missionaries defending the oppressed South American natives. Martyrdom was to be their crowning glory.

I also dug up my 1985 Favali-related magazine article which was about the diary of Fr. Peter Geremia, the real target of Favali’s killers. Then I went over my 2005 column on Sr. Dorothy Stang who was killed in Brazil for defending the indigenous tribes and the Amazon wilderness from exploiters.

Going over my own written stuff on bloody events of the distant past was perhaps my way of contemplating the recent bloody events. There have been so many this October—the assassination of Father Tentorio, the mass killing of soldiers in Basilan by Moro rebels despite the on-going peace talks, murders, rapes, family massacres, deaths caused by environmental disasters. And we’re just a few days away from All Saints’/All Souls’ Day when we honor our dear departed. October is Indigenous Peoples Month.

With Father Tentorio in my thoughts, I read what I had written a quarter of a century ago on a movie on martyrdom. Hmm, I thought, I could have written this just yesterday.

“The music, the song and the gaze of each native bear the mark of sadness for the plundering of the land…Our feet are calloused by the long journeys we have made, fleeing from the invader each time he has driven us into a corner.”

That was part of the message of the indigenous people of Colombia to Pope John Paul II during his visit there, I wrote. This painful and damning modern-day epistle could very well have been written by the Guarani Indians of 18th century Paraguay to the Pope of that time, when the Indians, along with Jesuit missionaries caught in a political maelstrom not of their own making, were driven out of mission territory and butchered by men who believed that might is right. This is what the film “The Mission” is all about.

Winner of the Palm d’Or Award for Best Film, “The Mission” tells us about the politics of greed and enslavement. It also gives us a hint that liberation theology, so frowned upon by despots in scarlet robes and military uniforms, was not invented in the 20th century but rose out of the blood spilled by the poor and the dispossessed—the “anawim.”

As one watches the drama that unfolded 200 years ago one can feel its contemporary implications. Today, tribal or indigenous groups are still subjected to the same degradation, they are still used as pawns in power conflicts, and the selfless women and men of God who work and live with them are themselves dismissed as incorrigible recalcitrants who got lost with their sheep.

Fathers Mendoza (De Niro) and Gabriel (Irons) choose the path less trodden, but when the time of reckoning comes, each one chooses a separate way without abandoning the flock. Mendoza chooses to fight with arms alongside the Guarani Indians while Gabriel opts for prayer and Guarani people power to stop the invading forces.

Both prove powerless before the mighty soldiers. The mission goes up in flames, the Indians and the missionaries are all but wiped out. And all that are left are mountains trembling with verdant rage, all that remains is the eternal hum of the forest which must continue to nurture the young who are left behind.

Newsweek’s Jack Kroll called “The Mission” a “sweeping spectacle about one of history’s great betrayals.”

Hic sunt dracones. “There Be Dragons.” Betrayal and death are also themes in this latest Joffé movie which was inspired by events in the life of St. Josemaria Escriva, Spanish priest and founder of the Opus Dei. But more than betrayal, there is love, forgiveness and redemption being played out against the awesome backdrop of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. (Gorgeous production design, I must say.)

The movie is part true-to-life (Escriva’s and the Opus Dei’s early days) and part fiction (the life and battles of his childhood bosom friend Manolo Torres). Their adult lives unfold separately but their paths would later cross dangerously a number of times in the battlefields.

“There Be Dragons” is a drama woven around the young Escriva (Charlie Cox) but not necessarily centered on him. The movie is bigger than him, which is a good thing, otherwise it would look like an Opus Dei hard-sell. It is a story of war—within and without—with no one left unscathed, Escriva included.

It is a story within a story, spun out of a journalist-biographer’s desire to know the truth about Escriva who was a friend of his dying father’s. The flashbacks begin. Deadly secrets explode like bombs. An even more stunning surprise waits in the end.

“There Be Dragons” will be in theaters next week.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

Readers write

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

Rarely do I use readers’ letters in this space. Readers send feedback via the Inquirer online, email, snail mail, text or to my blogsite. I get surprised when a piece that I thought would not get much reader reaction—whether negative or positive—would elicit reflective feedback, sometimes laden with personal insights.

Last month I wrote about Welcome House and the Heart of Mary Villa, both run by the Good Shepherd Sisters, and their services for “the last, the least and the lost” (“For PCSO to know,” Sept. 29). Both were in Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s list of “endangered” service-oriented institutions.

Joan Orendain, a known PR practitioner, wrote me a letter: “How Welcome House welcomed my two little boys and me in 1974! Yes, we were in crisis.

“Lucky, 4, became Sr. Catalina Santos’ shadow, following her around all day, helping her water the plants (the floor got it more than the plant). But Sister Catá (the daughter of the Armed Forces Judge Advocate General) never complained…

“TJ, 6, helped the cook in the kitchen. My bosses, commissioned by the World Bank to do feasibility studies on Philippine highways to be reconstructed, brought my typewriter to Welcome House. There, I put the reports together, and in my spare time, was comforted by Sr. Emma Alday, a guidance counselor and the gentlest of souls.

“All the other women at the crisis center were pregnant and unwed, except one who was married to an activist who had gone into hiding and left the pregnant lady and her two-year-old son homeless. We were one another’s support group, bolstered by the Good Shepherd Sisters who fed and kept us whole.

“My sons were in such a loving atmosphere that they never complained about missing friends or not seeing the outside world during our over a month’s stay at Welcome House. They must have thought we were on an extended holiday in that nurturing atmosphere.

“It’s such a wrench to think that the PCSO has withdrawn funding for such an important institution as Welcome House. We have to pray PCSO will have a change of heart.”

From Charlie Falquerabao: “I have read your column “One woman, 15 pregnancies, 12 children”. You know what? My family has the same story as the family of Yoling. My mother had 13 pregnancies and 10 children. I was raised in the very remote province of Mindoro Oriental where life is so simple. My father is a farmer and my mother is a plain housewife. There is no electricity, no vehicles, no cell phones, no gadgets, no apples, no burgers, etc…

“The weird thing was that while I was in the middle of your story I found myself crying. I didn’t know the reason why but my tears kept on pouring. Just want to share, “pinaiyak mo ako eh (because you made me cry).”

From an assistant school principal: “Your article… was like a narration of our yaya’s life story. When I read your article, it moved me. My yaya is almost Yoling’s age and she has 11 living children. She started giving birth at age 14. Her youngest child is five years old. She has been with me since my oldest child, now 11, was born. My kids really love her and call her Nanay.

“In the 11 years that she has been yaya, she has disappeared on us maybe four times; the longest was when she gave birth to her youngest child.

“She was also beaten up by her husband. There was a time when her husband would stalk her in front of our house. From then on she was forbidden to stay at our house. She would come to work at 6 a.m. and go home at 8 p.m. I pay her a salary equivalent to two maids because that is how much we love her and how hard she works for us.

“A month ago, one of her adolescent sons was confined in the Mental Hospital because he was blacking out in class—the effect of drug abuse and bad company. Nanay didn’t show up for three weeks.

“I asked her once if she wanted to have ligation and I will gladly pay for it but she said that her husband wouldn’t hear of it. She still menstruates, and the doctor told her that she shouldn’t get pregnant anymore because her life would be at risk. She is forty-ish but she looks late 50-ish.”

This letter from Dr. Ma. Cristina Licaycay-Gonzales was not addressed to me, but to an alumni e-group. “I belong to UST Med Batch 1987 and I am a medical officer in a provincial hospital’s OB-Gyne department. Yoling’s story is not unusual here in our province. The problem is women like her usually belong to the lower income bracket. I’m happy to say though that our province, through its RHUs/LGUs, is doing everything to look into such problems.

“But sometimes the women won’t even bother to go to the local health centers for check up even if it’s free. The midwives have to track them one by one through house visits which are taxing. Our minority group, the Mangyans, live in the mountains!

“Then come delivery time. NSDs for grandmultiparity are not covered by Philhealth even if some municipalities have their own version of the health insurance. There are times when the patient has only P10 in her wallet! Sometimes, not even a penny. It’s your duty as a government doctor to provide EVERYTHING for her delivery—from the IV fluids to the disposable diaper! I am always praying that these patients are not for Cesarean section or would not have uterine atony! That would surely mean headaches in producing meds or blood for transfusion.

“I’ve been doing this for the past 22 years since I passed the board exams. My work may not be financially rewarding but the sense of fulfillment is priceless! In January 2012 my class will be celebrating its silver homecoming. I may not be as well-off as most of my batchmates but I can hold my head up high and say that I’ve experienced much in helping the least of my brethren. Go USTE! ”

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One woman, 15 pregnancies, 12 children

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

She is 42 years old, has had 15 pregnancies, two of them miscarriages and one induced abortion. She has 12 children who are alive, the eldest of them aged 26 and the youngest about four or five. She has three grandchildren, two of them children of single mothers.

I met Yoling (not her real name) last week. A friend brought Yoling with her from a town in Rizal where both their families reside. Yoling stayed overnight in Quezon City while waiting for someone to pick her up. She was going to a home somewhere outside Metro Manila where she will be working as a maid for a monthly pay of P2,500.

When I learned that Yoling has 12 children I asked her if I we could talk. She said yes right away. I told her I was a journalist writing for the Inquirer. I also said that she must have a very interesting life and a good story to tell. Could I write about her? Could I take a photo of her? Could she tell me her name and her children’s? She said yes to all without shyness or hesitation, but I also told her that it was best that I withheld her identity.

I asked my questions with utmost respect. Yoling was serious but not guarded, she was not the very talkative type but she answered questions straightforwardly.

Yoling is a real person. She is not a fictitious character or a composite of so many women.

What got me interested in her was her being a mother, at a young age of 42, to 12 children. And that she was leaving all of them, her husband Narding (not his real name) included, to work far from their home. Narding, 57, has tuberculosis and cannot earn a living.

Yoling and Narding raised their big family in a rather secluded rural part of a Rizal town. They have been caretakers of a piece of land, about four hectares, that has not been developed. Yoling sometimes did domestic work for the landowner’s family while Narding did basic carpentry for people nearby.

The two had very little income. The land was not very good for rice or vegetable farming but the couple did try to make it yield food for their family.

“I was born in Naga (Camarines Sur),” Yoling narrated. “I finished Grade 3. At an early age I ran away from home.” She went to Pampanga and worked as a domestic helper for several years. There she met Narding who was then working in her employers’ rice mill. In no time, they became a couple.

Rizal province was where they headed for and began raising a family. The two were never married legally but Yoling said many years ago a pastor from a religious denomination married them. Yoling clarified though that Narding had been previously married to someone and had in fact four children from that union, and 10 grandchildren as well.

Oh, she added, Narding had beaten her up a few times, but when she fought back, he backed off and that was the end of it.

The children came one after the other, Yoling said. “Kung minsan ako ang nagpaanak sa sarili ko.” (Sometimes I just delivered the baby by myself.) That was when the hilot (midwife) came too late or when there was no one to assist her.

Yoling volunteered the information that although she has 12 living children, she has had 15 pregnancies. Three did not make it. One of them—maybe the 10th, Yoling cannot now recall exactly—was lost because of induced abortion. Of her 12 living children, one—maybe the ninth—was given up for adoption.

And how did she come to know about an abortionist? “A neighbor led me to one who lived not far from our place,” Yoling answered.

And what was the procedure like? Were instruments inserted into her? Did she have to take pills or drink concoctions? None of those, Yoling answered. All the abortionist did was to press on her abdomen, on the area where the uterus was. She pressed hard and long. The pain was so intense Yoling almost passed out. The pressure was meant to suffocate and kill the baby. The result was not immediate.

Soon after, the landowner, not knowing what Yoling went through, called for her to do the laundry. The physical exertion took its toll.

A few days later, Yoling bled and a fetus came out of her. “It was a boy,” she said sadly. Yoling hemorrhaged and was rushed to the hospital. “I was 50-50,” she said, hastening to narrate her near-death experience (NDE). How she felt, what she heard and saw in that divide between life and the afterlife. And how she was sent back. (Not enough space here for Yoling’s NDE.)

“I stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks,” she recalled. “My husband was angry and he tried to track down the abortionist but he could not find her.”

The experience left Yoling weak, but never too weak to have a couple more babies. Now 42, Yoling could have several more. She still menstruates but her husband, she said, is no longer up to it. She sounded relieved. Narding is tubercular and nearing 60.

But how did her family become so big? we asked. Two months after delivering the baby, the baby-making resumed as usual and without let-up, she said. In the midst of a huge brood? I asked. “We have a separate room,” she answered sheepishly.

Did she breastfeed? Hardly, Yoling said. What formula did she feed her infants? “Milkmaid,” was her stunning answer. That was how she called condensed milk, the sweet, sticky ingredient used for desserts.

No way her husband would use condoms. No ligation for her, no vasectomy for him. Pills, she tried to get from the health center but she was being asked to pay for them. What about natural family planning (NFP). Yung pagpipigil, was how I said it. “Yung calendar?” she asked. Yoling knew about NFP but said they couldn’t quite follow it.

Was there anyone from the government, the NGOs or the churches who, upon beholding their life of penury, had seriously helped them plan their family and for their children’s future?

No one.

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Mattress peddlers, NPA hostages

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

A heart-rending sight for me is that of a lone man carrying a whole bed or aparador on his back and walking the streets of the city, hoping to sell the homemade furniture, be relieved of the load on his back and go home with some money. A Philippine version of the Carrying of the Cross, indeed. I see this every now and then, and I wonder if bad elements would even think of divesting such peddlers of their wares and money like they do to taxi drivers, pedestrians and students.

This thought played on my mind as I went over the case of the Initao 6, homemade mattress peddlers from Initao, Misamis Oriental, who were abducted by the communist New People’s Army (NPA). The men left home on Aug. 10 and were said to be headed for the Bukidnon uplands and even stopped by a fiesta in the hope of maximizing their sales. They are James Mabaylan, 60, driver; Nelson Bagares, 46; Segundino Dailo Jr., 46; Ernesto Callo Jr., 34; Julieto Sarsaba, 30; and Ronal Boiles, 28. Four are married, Sarsaba and Boiles are single.

The abduction became publicly known when a press conference was held at the residence of Bukidnon Archbishop Antonio Ledesma sometime in early September. On September 13 the NPA under Commander Parago in Paquibato district (bordering Bukidnon and Davao) owned up to the abduction and stated the reason: the mattress peddlers were allegedly spying for the military.

The families of the hostages had sought the help of Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte but he reportedly declined to intercede on the hostages’ behalf. His reason: he was a resource person of the National Democratic Front (of which the NPA is part). But there are those who have speculated that Duterte, known to be a persuasive politician, did not want to see a repeat of the failed release of jail guards whose freedom was reportedly promised to him by NDF chair Luis Jalandoni.

So the Initao 6 are still out there, in forests primeval perhaps, without their mattresses to sleep on. Or did the NPA abductors seize the mattresses, too? Might these have contained deadly weapons in them?

I got an update on the Initao 6 from Jurgette Honculada, a gender and labor rights advocate from Zamboanga who serves as a member of the Government of the Philippines Peace Panel (presently headed by human rights lawyer Alexander Padilla) in talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF. So-called peace talks have been on-and-off for the last 24 years. And though dwindling in number, the CPP/NPA/NDF can still wreak havoc in a dramatic way, like the recent attacks on mining operations in Surigao del Norte.

Should these talks just continue for as long as it takes? Or do we want to see a denouement of some sort? (In plain language, maghalo ang balat sa tinalupan.)

On the subject of mattresses. Some 15 years ago, a group of enterprising young men from Davao, Bukidnon and Davao City tried their hand at making homemade coco coir mattresses . These men later married and settled in Barangay Tubigan, Initao, which became a center of mattress production.

Mattress making is the main source of livelihood of more than one-third of families in the barangay. Children help convert coconut husk into fiber through the pagkuskos method. Each mattress contains around 10 kilos of coir. The women make mattress covers from out of sacks. The men do the carpentry and assembly, as well as look for customers.

Here are details that might interest supporters of community-based livelihood programs. Mattress production in Initao increased with credit from cooperatives. A loan of P40,000 to P45,000 can fund a team of six persons (driver, producers, peddlers, canvassers) who will travel to sell. They load as many as 50 mattresses onto a vehicle and take them to as far as Caraga, Davao, Cotabato and Zamboanga . They go during or after harvest time when farming families have money to spend. A mattress could sell for P1,000 to P3,000. The person who takes out the loan could go home with a net of P7,000 or less if the trip stretches to month. The rest get their share, too.

The Initao 6 just went out there to sell mattresses. Now they are hostages.

Last week, a letter of appeal on their behalf was sent to the NDF Negotiating Panel based in the Netherlands, through its secretariat in Cubao. The letter was signed by Misamis Oriental Gov. Oscar S. Moreno, Vice Governor Norris Babiera, Archbishop Ledesma and five other bishops (Catholic and Protestant), and Paul Paraguya of Balay Mindanaw Foundation.

“We are appealing, in behalf of the families of the above-named individuals, for their immediate release and the peaceful resolution of this unfortunate incident. These individuals are marginal vendors who earn their living by selling homemade foams and mattresses, made by their community-based livelihood projects… Based on our own investigation, they have never been involved in any unlawful undertaking that would have warranted their prosecution before any courts of law, nor have they been tagged as military or police informers.

“Their families pray … that they be released unharmed in the spirit of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. A single day in captivity is almost an eternity for their families who desperately need and depend on them for daily subsistence and fatherly love… The agony, stress and anxiety brought about by the incident are too much for their families to bear… We … share in both our government’s and the NDFP’s quest for a principled resolution of the problem of insurgency.”

Have mercy on the mattress peddlers.

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'Ina': What price family, faith, love

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Love, commitment. The self, comfort, material possessions. Family. Occasionally, these are put to the test. Which will endure? At what price?

Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s latest film, “Ina: Ikaw ang Pag-ibig,” does not beg for obvious answers as it follows what looks like separate journeys of individuals whose lives are inexorably linked with one another. Although familial, emotional and spiritual ties exist among them, each has a road to follow, a different drummer to heed.

Then there is “Ina,” the venerated image of Our Lady of Peñafrancia who is known for her miraculous intercessions, and who is at the heart of the movie.

Vangie (Ina Feleo) is a single mom to Gabby (Yogo Singh), her young son with boyfriend Joey (Jomari Yllana), an OB-Gyne who keeps pressing her to finally marry him so they could have a family. Dr. Joey is caring, committed and affectionate but Vangie who works in advertising is afraid to commit.

Vangie lives with mom (Shamaine Centerera), who looks after Gabby, because her absentee dad (Noni Buencamino) has been working abroad for years and is ostensibly not coming home soon.

Vangie has a pro bono sideline radically different from her commercial productions. She’s working on-and-off on a documentary on the Virgin of Peñafrancia.

Fr. Johnny (Marvin Agustin) is Vangie’s only brother, who takes his priestly vocation to heart, braving sun and rain and driving his motorcycle through dirt roads to reach his flock in remote places. Work and stress take their toll and he comes down with leukemia.

At this point, the Cruz family must either hang together or pull apart. Family problems, medical procedures, financial woes and spiritual questions surge on them like a tsunami.

Son in tow, Vangie travels to Bicol to visit the Virgin of Peñafrancia, whom she only knows through her video footage. They quietly slip into the small chapel where the image is usually kept after the feast. Vangie seeks out an aunt who turns out to be the keeper of the virgin’s miraculous cape, and returns to Manila with it.

Fr. Johnny is close to dying. A risky bone marrow transplant could spell the difference. Vangie is the only matching source for bone marrow. Will she or won’t she?

An intense moment: Vangie confesses to her ailing brother in the hope that the sacrament would result in healing for him, for herself and her family. She spills all.

By this time, the “Ina” that Vangie used to know only as the image on her video screen has come alive in her family who is drawn closer together. But there are loads of material and interior baggage they’d have to give up. Will there be healing for Fr. Johnny and the rest of them? Where is the miracle? You will have to watch the movie.

Weaving footage of a true-to-life event (the Peñafrancia feast) into a fictional feature film takes a lot of creativity. Diaz-Abaya and her crew braved the surging crowds to film this once-in-a-century event.

The budget-challenged indie film is a celebration of the 300th year of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, whose week-long September feast draws hundreds of thousands of devotees, spiritual seekers and tourists to Naga City where she is enshrined. It was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres under Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legazpi.

“Ina,” says its director, was no ordinary project. Even while battling cancer, she forged on to do what she now considers the film closest to her heart. The multi-awarded director has done many groundbreaking and socially-relevant movies (“Rizal,” “Muro-ami,” and “Bagong Buwan” among many), but “Ina” has a special place in her heart.

“It could be my swan song,” she quips. “I had no idea if I could see it through. If I didn’t, there was [director] Laurice Guillen or Olive Lamasan, both Marian devotees, to finish it.”

But Marilou Diaz-Abaya and her “Ina” came through with flair and flourish. A miracle. Viva la Virgen!