`Ein papst aus Deutschland’

I kept switching to Deutsche Welle (DW), the German channel on cable TV, right after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope last week. What was it like for the Germans, the predominantly Catholic Bavarians especially, to have one of them become Papst Benedikt XVI? The crawler on the TV screen said ``Ein papst aus Deutschland’’ (the pope from Germany).

DW had first crack at the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, so to speak, in Ratzinger’s home town in Bavaria, Germany. Now, cookies and bread are being named after him.

DW was game enough to show tabloids with screaming headlines saying ``Papa Ratzi’’, ``German Shepherd’’, ``God’s Rottweiler’’ and something about the Hitlerjungen to which Ratzinger was conscripted in his youth.

I’ve been to Germany a couple of times. Both were journalism-related trips and the second one took us through the so-called ``Romantic Route’’ and the ``Fairy Tale Route’’ that featured castles, places in the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales and even a torture museum. A must-see was the castle of the tragic Bavarian king Ludwig after which the Disneyland logo was modeled.

Bavarians are supposed to be warmer in disposition compared with Germans from the north. Several of my mentors in college were German Benedictine nuns who hailed mostly from Bavaria. I can still name some of them. Sr. Odiliana Rohrwasser (Trigo, Algebra, Physical Science, Theology II),who is now in Baguio; Sr. Ehrentrudis Eichinger (Psychology, Theology III); Sr. Ma. Bruno Allmang (Logic, Cosmology and Ontology, Art Appreciation) who is back at their Motherhouse near Lake Stanberg in Bavaria. The librarian was Sr. Ma. Clemens Schwarzmaier. It was boot camp with a smile.



They always spoke in English so we never learned German. The famous ``Ich bin ein Berliner’’ I learned from JFK.

Shock, joy, acceptance. These were some reactions I solicited in the aftermath of Ratzinger’s election.

``When I heard his named mentioned, my heart sank,’’ said American Maryknoll sister and theology professor Helen Graham the morning after the announcement was made. She’s had little sleep since the news broke the night before, she confided.

But, perhaps to console herself and those who felt the same say, Graham reminded: ``Ratzinger’s role in the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith differed from this new role as pope which is to focus on unity.’’

Ratzinger was the late Pope John Paul II’s enforcer of orthodoxy, the one who cracked the whip in doctrinal matters. He authored the ``Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World’’ which was hugely criticized by women’s rights advocates. Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel’s maiden speech in congress last year was a stinging criticism of Ratzinger’s letter.

Graham was not entirely distraught. ``I have some hope that this new role would take him in new directions. Now he has a different agenda, a different job, which is to be a symbol of unity.’’
Interviewed by the Inquirer just before the conclave, Graham had said she ``was saddened by the opposition to even discussing the issue of women’s ordination, the stifling of imaginative theological thinking and the inability to make any change whatsoever in reproductive issues that profoundly affect the lives of women.’’

Graham is a proponent of the use of inclusive language in the liturgy.

I noticed that John Paul II’s funeral and Benedict XVI’s installation liturgies were grandly, hugely, almost entirely all-male. Even the choir was all-boys.

``I was very happy’’ Bishop Rolando Tria-Tirona of the recently devastated Prelature of Infanta told the Inquirer. ``I hope to see him put back moral, spiritual and pastoral sense in Western Europe where the church is dwindling. There has been too much relativism, a kind of wishy-washiness there.’’

In his homily before the conclave, Ratzinger had warned about relativism. Tirona added the new pope might leave his old public persona behind. ``When you are in another position you will shed your old role. You have greater perspective.’’

Tirona, head of the Episcopal Commission on the Youth, will soon meet Pope Benedict XVI at the World Youth Day gathering in Cologne, Germany. They had met briefly in the past and Tirona was impressed by Ratzinger’s aura of humility.

And what does Sister Mary John Mananzan, Germany-educated prioress of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in the Philippines, known feminist and women’s rights advocate here and abroad, founder of the Women’s Institute of St. Scholastica’s College and one of the driving spirits behind the Ecumenical Association of Third World Women Theologians? ``The only thing I want to say is: I believe in the Holy Spirit more than I believe in my human judgment. That is why I am accepting (Pope Benedict XVI) in faith. Wala na akong idadagdag pa (I have nothing more to add).’’

Interviewed some years ago on Bavarian TV, Ratzinger was asked if he really believed the Holy Spirit plays a role in the election of the pope. His answer: ``I would not say so in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope, because there are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have picked. I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.’’

I agree. Only I refer to the Holy Spirit as a she.

Billboards from hell

If someone had already used the above title, please, may I use it again? I couldn’t find a nastier one.

Every person and her/his first cousin living in this metropolis and yonder surely have a billboard complaint to air. I have mine, you have yours and chances are, we’re all talking about the same things. The unending row of gigantic billboards lining the highways. The smaller ones, zillions of them, hung on lamp posts in the middle of the road. The defacement, the darkening, the uglification of the sky and the horizon. The offensive, stupid content.

In saecula saeculorum. The repetitiveness, the eternity of this brazen assault on your senses just blows your mind to billboard hell. It is an Andy Warhol nightmare except that it is also yours and mine. How have we come to this?

Last year, I wrote a piece on billboards when the offensive, double-entendre ``kinse anyos’’ ad of Napoleon Brandy created a furor. I had an email avalanche from irate readers who were thankful someone had expressed their pent-up disgust in print.

But that was about content. I mentioned then that before the outcry against the Napoleon Brandy ad, there was this huge billboard near the foot of the Nagtahan Bridge that was just as offensive. I saw it every time I came from the Inquirer in Makati and headed for home via Nagtahan. It showed a young girl, about 15 or 16, in a reclining position and with her legs sufficiently spread out. She had her big pleading eyes looking up, and she had the fly of her jeans unzipped and wide open to show her skimpy panty and most of her pubic area. Lee was the jeans brand. The sell jeans that way?



It was there for many months and I wondered whether Manila mayor-pro-lifer Lito Atienza noticed it or whether the President did every time she came from Malacanang and was headed north.

Billboards used to be made of metal sheets that were hand-painted. Now they are made of plastic sheets that come out of giant printing machines. I once saw a team of workers preparing to hoist up a billboard. The sheets flowed like a river and covered a whole sidewalk.

This reminded me of the European artist Kristo who covered entire buildings and structures with canvas and then had them photographed. He mummified entire landscapes even if only for the duration of his outdoor exhibition. He was making a statement while the population watched in awe and puzzlement. Our advertising and billboard industries leave nothing for the imagination.

The issue now against billboards is not just their content. It is their proliferation. It is the inconsiderate, wanton, crude, rude desire to call attention and to sell. Manufacturers plaster giant pictures of their products everywhere. Globe and Smart, you are number one. Happee toothpaste, you made Jasmine Trias’ face pathetic.

Well, their days might soon be over. Citizens have banded together to fight this mental and physical hazard, this aggression and oppression. Environmental activists, motorists, artists, educators, social scientists, consumers, lawyers, media practitioners, public servants, businessmen and many others from various fields have formed the Anti Billboard Coalition (ABC). Call 6471181 if you want to join to the effort.

EDSA and main thoroughfares, expressways, rooftops, the bucolic and beautiful landscape in the provinces that beckon people home—they are now groaning under the weight of billboards. We have become a billboard wasteland.

Once upon a time billboards stood parallel to the highway. Now they are placed on a diagonal position or on a right angle to the road so that they can face, overwhelm and distract motorists.

How many billboard structures have collapsed during the typhoon season? How have these billboards affected our aesthetic values, how much have they added to the cacophony in our lives?

The problem with billboards is that when one brand manufacturer puts up one, the competition has to do the same and so forth and so on. There is no end, no limit. But what about those who are not selling a consumer product, why do they have to join the fray? You see huge ones announcing the arrival of evangelists or crowing about the projects of elected officials.

The billboard disease has spread to the rest of society. Now, everybody just hangs or nails anything on an empty space. ``Tubero’’, ``room 4 rent’’, ``lady bedspacer’’ and ``manghihilot’’ announcements have been around for a long time but now you have ``Happy Fiesta’’ and ``Congratulations graduates’’ from councilor so-and-so.

And what about those billboards on seminary property along EDSA? The priests there must be making oodles of money. Taxman, here. And who’s making money from ads hung on government property such as overpasses and traffic lights?

During a gathering of the anti-billboard activists, I said that perhaps, banning billboards all together would make the competing brand manufacturers happy. With billboards outlawed, they no longer have to spend on this type of advertising to outdo one another.

The billboard industry is big. Many sectors are involved--the manufacturers, advertising companies, models, site-hunters, property owners, billboard printers, construction companies. Will this Goliath crash and crumble? Sorry for those who invested in this business. You put your money and people in something so ugly and so wrong.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has two bills pending. Senate Bill 1714, the ``Anti-Billboard Act’’ seeks to regulate the placement of billboard signs. SB 1668 is ``an act prohibiting officers from claiming credit through signage announcing a public works project.’’

Allen’s `Conclave’

``The trash heaps of church history are littered with carcasses of journalists who have tried to predict the next pope.’’ This quote comes from journalist John L. Allen Jr., author of the updated ``Conclave: The Politics, Personalities and Process of the Next Papal Election’’ and ``All the Pope’s Men: The Inside Story on How the Vatican Really Thinks.’’.

Jesuit theologian Fr. Catalino Arevalo made sure I got a copy of Allen’s book. I rushed to Loyola House of Studies to claim it.

Allen was the familiar face and voice on TV during the week of the unprecedented global outpouring that led up to Pope John Paul II’s funeral. Allen provided background and context to the CNN reports from the Vatican.

A prize-winning Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, Allen is probably the best-known Vatican writer in the English language. He was described by veteran religion writer Kenneth Woodward as ``the journalist other reporters—and not a few cardinals—look to for the inside story on how all the pope’s men direct the world’s largest church.’’

That’s a plug for journalists as book authors. I am sure many of the cardinal electors now in Rome have Allen’s book under their armpits, or are furtively poring over it outside their meditation time.



Speaking of reading, and if I may digress, I found a rare photo among tens of thousands of JPII photos on the Internet. One shows JPII reading a book, while partly hidden in what looks like a nest of leaves and grass, his figure almost overwhelmed by the green overgrowth around him. (That’s a plug for summer reading which the Inquirer strongly encourages.)

``Conclave’’ is an exciting read in this summer of mourning and expectation. It has none of the arcane language often associated with topics related to the church magisterium. Allen writes vividly and makes the persons and issues come alive. He certainly has a journalist’s eye and ear for the what, where, when, who, how, why and, of course, juicy quotes.

``Conclave’’ has five chapters: What does the pope do, voting issues, how the conclave works, political parties in the college of cardinals, and the profiles of all the candidates, meaning, everybody. Allen devotes a little extra to his Top 10.

To understand why the election of a pope is important, Allen says, we first need to grasp what the pope does. Unfortunately, he adds, there is no job description for the head of the Roman Catholic Church. ``Lots of titles…are of little immediate help: supreme pontiff (pontifex maximus), servant of the servants of God, vicar of Christ, successor of Peter, bishop of Rome, patriarch of the West…

``A 20th-century way to describe the pope might be to say that he is the legal and spiritual head of the Roman Catholic Church, at one billion members the largest Christian denomination in the world, and certainly the most vertically integrated. One way of putting the point: the pope can push a button in Rome and see something happen in Singapore in ways that the archbishop of Canterbury or the Dalai Lama cannot.

``In reality, however, the demands of the position are far more vast. A modern pope is called upon to be an intellectual, a politician, a pastor, a media superstar, and a Fortune 500 CEO. He must produce complex documents setting out the thinking of the Catholic Church on the most vexing problems that confront humanity.’’

Allen makes it clear that conclaves full of cardinals appointed by the deceased pope, as in the present crop, do not elect photocopies of the man who named them. More often, Allen points out, the opposite holds true: they elect popes who pursue different policies. This is sometimes called the pendulum law of conclave psychology.

``In 1903, for example, the cardinals met to pick a successor to Leo XIII, who had reigned for 25 years. He had been pope so long, one of his own cardinals had famously groaned, `We elected a Holy Father, not an Eternal Father.’ Leo XIII’s pontificate… opened the Catholic Church to the modern age, encouraged scientific biblical studies, launched Catholic social teaching, and moved the church beyond its nostalgic desire to revive a `sacred alliance’ of Catholic monarchies by engaging a cautious détente with secular democracies.’’

The obvious successor for the modernizing project was Leo XIII’s secretary of state, but the conclave chose Giuseppe Sato who, as Pius X, cracked down on modernism.

There is always some frustration and impatience after a long reign, a tendency to straighten some flaws in the old order.

And so Allen sets out to look into ``John Paul II’s unfinished business.’’ The chapter ``Voting Issues’’ lists five: collegiality in the church; ecumenism and interreligious dialogue; globalization, poverty and justice; bioethics, sexuality and the family; and, women and laity. I think this is a very important chapter and the heart of the book. What had JPII done in these areas and where will the church go from here?

If you’re the nosy type, the chapter on how the conclave works is for you. Allen even talks about the bedrooms and the toilets of yore. Hear the late Cardinal Basil Hume of England complain that the beds must have come ``from a seminary for very short people.’’ JPII made sure the electors after him do not go through the discomforts his batch experienced in 1978.

Well, as the say, in the end, it will be the Holy Spirit who will guide the election. In one interview, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is asked: ``Do you really believe that the Holy Spirit plays a role in the election of the pope?’’ I think his answer is rather interesting.

John Paul II, beloved pilgrim

It was springtime in January in the souls of millions when Pope John Paul II came to visit the Philippines for the second time 10 years ago in 1995. Like a homecoming pilgrim, he came. It is seedtime, he said in so many words, referring to the promise the youth held for the turn of the millenium, as he rallied them to plunge into ``the great adventure of living life well.’’

Think of that quote.

World Youth Day in 1995 in Manila will be etched in history books as days of wonder and joy ineffable. Four million gathered in one place to pray and commune with each other, to be blessed, to be one. Only Filipinos could throw a spiritual fiesta such as that one.

How wonderful. How wonderful for him to be in our tight embrace and us in his.

A thousand images of this blessed land he was taking home with him, he said before waving goodbye. The thousands of words he said to us we will remember and forever keep in our hearts.

I was one of those assigned to cover his visit, to catch his every word in places where he spoke. The reporters in the police beat had an even more daunting task, to wade into the throng, to watch out, just in case…



Those of us who kept watch at the Papal Visit press office at the PICC got copies of the pope’s speeches just a few minutes before he delivered them, never much earlier. Then we had to run off to catch him as there was no telling whether he would stick to the prepared text. I had kept a lot of the 1995 papal stuff in my files. Here are some choice quotes that could remind us to live a little better, love a little stronger as Filipinos.

``Too many young people do not realize that they themselves are the ones who are mainly responsible for giving a worthwhile meaning to their lives. The mystery of human freedom is at the heart of the great adventure of living life well.’’–World Youth Day prayer vigil at Rizal Park

``What does the Church look for in the Filipino youth? For help in saving your own generation from the futility, frustration and emptiness in which so many of your contemporaries find themselves.’’–Meeting with students at the UST parade grounds

``A situation where economic wealth and political power are concentrated in the hands of a few is, as you have written, `an affront to human dignity and solidarity.’ Too many families remain without land to till or a home to live in, and too many people are without employment and basic services. Your task must be to help create a new attitude, a conviction shaped by the principle of the social purpose of power and wealth, which can lead to appropriate changes in the prevailing order.’’–to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

``Today, more than ever, the followers of the various religious traditions need to know each other better in order to work together in defending those common human and spiritual values without which a society worthy of man cannot be built.’’–at the 25th anniversary of Radio Veritas Asia

``If you defend the inalienable dignity of every human being, you will be revealing to the world the true face of Jesus Christ, who is one with every man, every woman and every child, no matter how poor, no matter how weak or handicapped.’’–World Youth Day prayer vigil at Rizal Park

``Your firm stand against the pessimism and selfishness of the those who plot against the splendor of human sexuality and human life is an essential demand of your pastoral ministry and of your service to the Filipino people.’’–to the Filipino bishops

``I take with me a thousand images of the Filipino people. I know your desire for greater justice and a better life for yourself and your children. No one can underestimate the difficulties your face and the hard work that lies ahead.’’-Farewell speech at the airport

``Let me express this call in the words of song which I learned when I was still in my own country. The song goes: `Come with me to save the world; for already it’s the 20th century.’ Indeed the 20th century is now coming to an end. So Christ says: `Come with me into the Third Millennium, to save the world.’’–at the Mass for the International Youth Forum delegates at UST

``The religious traditions of very ancient cultures remain powerful forces in the East, and present you with particular challenges. The Church esteems these spiritual traditions as living expressions of the soul of vast groups of people. They carry within them the echo of thousands of years searching for God.’’’–to the Asian Bishops.

Well, as they say, everyone has a story to tell. I have mine and it dates back to 1981 during the first visit of Pope John Paul II. I got to write about it only in 1995 (``The Pope launched my writing career’’) in the Inquirer.

The first, and I mean the first, feature story I ever wrote in my life in 1980 got me and the magazine editor (now the Inquirer’s editor in chief) in big trouble with the Marcos dictatorship.

Six months later, on Feb. 21, 1981, Pope John Paul II handed me a rock trophy for what I wrote.

I was not even a journalist at that time. I was with a church-related human rights organization. I was trained in behavioral science and for years my world was psychometrics and counseling until I became a religious novice and metamorphosed into a human rights worker. That was when the writing began. Somehow this JPII clinched it and so the writing continues to this day.

Well, what has it been like to have pen in hand? Lines from JPII’s own poem (``The Quarry’’) give a picture of it: ``Hands are the heart’s landscape. They split sometimes/like ravines into which an undefined force rolls.’’

Goodbye JPII. May angels sing you to thy rest.

If, you, do, not, speak, for, us

Another media practitioner has been gunned down.

I don’t easily break into a white rage. What I conjured up in my mind was someone, or maybe myself, mounting a podium in slo-mo then mouthing Sophocles: ``Who is the slayer, who the victim?’’

And the adrenaline having risen, to declare with Kennedyesque pathos: ``If, you, do, not, speak, for, us, you, are, killing, us. And, also, yourselves.’’

That was just my mind trying to tame the anger that was surging. All I wanted to say in street-corner language was an exploding, ``BS to you all who did this, and may you be cursed even in the afterlife.’’ But then one didn’t say such things, even silently in one’s heart, while Christendom was commemorating the passion of Jesus and his rising from the dead.

Come to think of it, besides ourselves, who is speaking up for the journalists? Who are the individuals, what are the groups and institutions out there that will come to our defense? By speaking, I mean doing something concrete and reaping results.



The government, the church and religious communities, civil society, entertainment and sports celebrities, vendors, jeepney drivers, environmentalists, the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts, students, battered women, abused children, drug dependents, rape and kidnap victims, the literati and the culturati, readers and listeners, prostitutes, the urban poor, the rural poor, the indigenous people, intellectuals, professionals?

Who? Who in our address book, cell phone directory and email list? Perhaps no one? The bleakest, self-pitying thought was in my mind when I learned that one more media practitioner/whistleblower was gunned down last Holy Thursday.

No one. Else why does the killing not stop?

Marlene Garcia-Esperat, 45, was murdered on the night of Holy Thursday. So much like ``On the night he was betrayed…’’ of the Holy Thursday scenario, only this was Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat. Esperat was shot in the face in front of her two sons. Her husband heard the shot.

While working as a chemist at the Department of Agriculture, Esperat uncovered a lot of anomalies and kept exposing them for several years until she left in exasperation. She turned media practitioner and filed cases of corruption with the Ombudsman. She just knew too much. (Full story in the March 29 Inquirer.)

Esperat was the fourth media practitioner killed this year, the 17th since last year. If you consider the more than 60 or so killed since 1986, 17 deaths in the past year and three months is too many. In fact, the Philippines has been declared the second most dangerous place for journalists, next to Iraq. The Philippines as ``killing fields’’ for journalists was featured in the March 21 issue of Time magazine. Three pages were devoted to this dishonorable reputation.

Here it’s not stray bullets and bombs that kill, it’s bullets with the journalists’ name on them. And corruption in high places has a lot to do with the killings. C,o,r,r,u,p,t,i,o,n. Try and give that word a look by using the diacritical marks and the frownies found in your cell phone. You could do a few things with the letter U. I didn’t say, press SEND.

The motive for killing a whistleblower or a journalist is to silence. Revenge is more of an afterthought. Surely there were journalists who had been sucked into the dark side and left their integrity at home and later paid dearly for their indiscretions. An extortionist masquerading as a journalist, no matter how subtly, knows the law of the jungle and will have his comeuppance.

But journalists who do their job well are not a vanishing species. Alas, they are endangered.

Long before Esperat became a media practitioner, that is, as a columnist for a the Midland Review in Mindanao, she was already an irrepressible whistleblower in the government bureaucracy. She had the goods, the figures, the names. She was even featured in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism’s i-magazine as ``Madame Witness.’’

How often have ordinary citizens approached journalists with ``inside goods’’, meaning the rot in the government bureaucracy, be it health, public works, education, defense, justice, and in the case of Esperat, agriculture which is synonymous with food. Almost always, the squealers or sources want to remain unknown. They are afraid for their lives. This is understandable.

What puzzles me is their seeming presumption that journalists are not afraid and are ready to be murdered, ready to leave their families and orphaned children grieving.

You don’t want to be identified? I asked someone gently. What about me, ako ang mapapatay dito (I’ll be the one killed here).

A press release from the office of Senator Mar Roxas says that the senate committee on public information and mass media will look into the finding of the International Federation of Journalists on the Philippines’ as killing fields. This was after Roxas filed Resolution 181 enabling an inquiry into the killing of journalists.

This is very good. But I hope they look into the root causes, the most obvious of which is corruption in government. The corrupt not only steal, they kill.

For today I had intended to write a whole piece on the recent Louie R. Prieto Awards for different categories of stories and photos that came out in the Inquirer. But then, the shocking news about Esperat... Four of the LRP awards were for the ``positive’’ categories. It’s not all bad and sad news, you know.

Joy comes in the morning. Like Mary of Magdala, I exclaim, ``Rabboni!’’ Feel the sound of it. And so Happy Easter.

The dessert mothers

March being Women’s month and today being Holy Thursday, it is a good time to reflect on the contribution of little known Christian women of ancient times.

During my recent visit to the Benedictine Resource Center at the St. Scholastica’s Center of Spirituality in Tagaytay, Sr. Bellarmine Bernas OSB showed me around the new building and library. If you’ve had a Benedictine education as I had (and so Germanic at that), you’d know you’re home amidst this treasure trove that is both ancient and new.

I saw a stack of books titled ``The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives and Stories of Early Christian Women’’ (2001) by Laura Swan, prioress of a Benedictine monastery in the Pacific Northwest. Sr. Bellarmine bought many copies at sale price so that more women and men would know about these trail-blazing women. I went home with a copy.

Swan’s book was the fruit of graduate research in theology and spirituality. ``(When) I began to pursue and collect traces of these women’s stories, it often felt like the sleuthing work of Sister Frevisse or Brother Cadfael in the medieval whodunits I enjoy. I found myself tracking down clues, following strands of evidence, and reading the shadow of texts to find these women. Clues often took the form of rare scholarly material, frequently in footnotes and asides.’’

Women’s history, Swan complains, has often been relegated to the shadow world: felt but not seen. ``Many of our church fathers became prominent because of women. Many of these fathers were educated and supported by strong women, and some are even credited with founding movements that were actually begun by the women in their lives.’’



Ancient Christian hagiography can be difficult reading, Swan says, so ``to assist our 21st-century hearts and sensibilities’’ she retells many of the stories, cuts out the heavy and highlights the helpful and interesting.

Christianity, Swan says, was initially a home-centered faith, with domestic dwellings used for community meetings. Both women and men were involved in spreading the faith and in works of mercy. Ancient tombstones revealed that women held leadership positions: ruler of the synagogue, deacon, presbyter, honorable woman bishop.

Even at that time when Christianity was under persecution by the Roman Empire, women were deeply attracted to the Christian movement. They embraced persecution and martyrdom and embarked on spiritual journeys. Some did experimentation in community living, others lived in solitude or in small groups.

As Christianity moved into the mainstream when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, many were also drawn to the desert and monasteries. As leadership opportunities within mainstream Christianity decreased, the desert and the monastery offered women a greater sense of physical and spiritual autonomy.

Those who wanted to dedicate themselves to the ascetic life had to seek a spiritual leader. Writes Swan: ``An amma or abba was someone seasoned in the ascetic life, who was known to have reached a level of maturity and wisdom and had experience in teaching by example, exhortation, story and instruction.''

The goal of the desert, says Swan, was apatheia. ``Apatheia is a mature mindfulness, a grounded sensitivity, and a keen attention to one’s inner world as well as to the world in which one has journeyed…The ammas teach us to intentionally let go of all that keeps us from the singleminded pursuit of God: feelings and thoughts that bind us, cravings and addictions that diminish our sense of worth and attachments to self-imposed perfectionism. Apatheia is nourished by simplicity grounded in abundance of the soul.’’

Amma Syncletica of Egypt could have meant this for those with star complex: ``For just as those who wish to gaze at the sun damage their vision, so also (she) who (tries) to mirror the radiance of her life fall victim to confusion of mind, dazzled, overcome, and unstrung by the magnitude of her achievements.’’

Melania the Elder of Jerusalem influenced a circle of men whose writings would highly influence Christian theology. Of her was written: ``A woman of more elevated rank, she loftily cast herself down to a humble way of life, so that as a strong member of the weak sex she might censure indolent men, so that as a rich person appropriating poverty, and as a noble person adopting humility, she might confound people of both sexes.'’

Radegunde (born 525) was the reluctant wife of Clothar I and a queen of the Franks. She used her wealth to build hospitals and minister to the poor. She left her husband upon learning that he had ordered the murder of her brother. She established a monastery at Poitiers, preached daily and devoted much time to prayer. She had a talent for pastoral care and spiritual direction.

The list is long: Euphrasia the Elder and the Younger, Euphrosyn of Alexandria, Alexandra, Florence, sisters Fracla, Posenna and Prompta, Blessed Woman Gelasia, Hilaria, Juliana, Manna of Fontenet, Mary the Anchorite, Mastridia of Jerusalem, Monegund, Matrona of Perge, sisters Nymphodora, Menodora and Metrodora, Photina, Sosiana, Amma Tachom, Theodora and so many more.

In 1990, while on a difficult mountain coverage, I chanced upon a spiritual community composed of indigenous folk. They spoke in chants. They lived on top of a mountain and were led by a colorfully ornamented, betel nut-chewing B’laan woman with fair skin and light brown eyes. Her name was Mokayo. She was revered. Outsiders referred to her as diwata (muse or nymph). She was an amma.

Bulanghoy, balinghoy

Inday, bayle ta/ Di ko kay kapuy/ Amon pamahaw bulanghoy/ Amon panihudto bulanghoy nga puto/ Amon panihapon bulanghoy gihapon. (Inday, let us dance/ No, I am tired/ Our breakfast was cassava/ Our lunch was cassava cake/ Our supper was still cassava.)

I learned that folk song many years ago from my Cebuano-speaking friends from whom I also learned street-corner lingo, like `Wa ka kuyapi?’ and how to eat boiled unripe bananas with ginamos (fish paste) which, for me, is a gustatory puzzlement. We kept singing the bulanghoy (cassava) song until the guitar strings broke. It was sang best when we were a little soused and it brought us down to earth and away from all the academic stuff.

That song was swimming in my head the past week after 27 school children in Mabini, Bohol died and more than a hundred were downed shortly after they ate fried cassava snacks sold by vendors. Questions were immediately raised. Was it the cassava root that did it? Was it the way the food was prepared? Cassava contains linamarin. If cassava is improperly prepared, this toxic component could remain. When ingested, linamarin converts to cyanide in the human digestive system.

Or was there something else that got into the food? Like poison, pesticides or harmful bacteria? If something had to take the blame I was hoping it would be one of these. I did not want the starchy root to be mired in stigma. Well, two days ago, the Health Department ruled that it was pesticide, present in the cassava snack, that did it. But investigations will continue.



The day this tragedy I happened, I was eating cassava pitsi-pitsi which I bought in a popular food place in Chinatown. It was in a microwaveable plastic container with a stick-on label that said it tastes best if refrigerated. Bulanghoy, balinghoy or kamoteng kahoy has come a long way from its barrio nilupak beginnings. Making nilupak (by pounding together boiled cassava, young coconut and sugar) is still an excuse for farm folk to soak in the glow of the full moon.

If you laid out before me a variety of desserts that consisted of pastries with vanilla essence and fancy toppings on one side and native goodies (kakanin) on the other side, I’d make a beeline for the latter. The blend of coconut meat and milk with sticky rice or grated starchy roots, caramelized sugar and pandan, sometimes with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and nuts, was concocted in heaven where the majority must be Southeast Asians. The late Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez, food writer, author, teacher, would agree.

I’ve read that cassava is the world’s third most important crop. Cassava (manihot esculenta) originated in Brazil where it is called manioc. The Portuguese colonizers later brought it to Africa.

Cassava is the principal source of nutrition for about 500 million people. The root is a rich source of carbohydrates, protein, minerals and vitamins A, B and C.

The North Americans have it as tapioca (sago to us) for their custard-like tapioca pudding. The Chinese use it for tikoy. From cassava also comes gawgaw (all-purpose starch powder). Filipinos make a variety of cassava delights, among them, cassava bibingka.

Cassava leaves are edible. I have not tried a leafy dish but I found a recipe which has a French name—Feuilles de Manioc—on the Internet. This is a Central African recipe which resembles our own laing magnifique which uses gabi (taro) leaves.

An article in a World Bank site says that ``new knowledge of the biochemistry of the crop has proved that the proteins embedded in the leaves are equal in quality to the protein in egg. Cassava leaves and roots, if properly processed, can therefore provide a balanced diet protecting millions of African children against malnutrition.’’

Cassava is called ``Africa’s food security crop.’’ Incidentally, improperly prepared cassava was the cause of a disease called konzo which was first noticed in Africa in the 1930s. This turned out be low-level cyanide poisoning.

Cassava is a versatile crop and can grow even in poor soil and in between trees and other crops, suppressing weed growth. Its abundant leaves that fall to the ground are good organic matter that enriches the soil.

During the Nigerian civil war when food was scarce, Flora Nwapa, a Nigerian novelist and poet, wrote in praise of this African staple.

``We thank the almighty God/ For giving us cassava/We hail thee cassava/The great cassava
``You grow in poor soils/You grow in rich soils/You grow in gardens/You grow in farms
``You are easy to grow/Children can plant you/Women can plant you/Everybody can plant you
``We must sing for you/Great cassava, we must sing/We must not forget/Thee, the great one.’’

But I must end with a spoiler. A vendor of the cassava snack, who was herself stricken ill and groveling in her hospital bed, with tubes in her nostrils and all, had to be made to cough up answers by the ABS-CBN team led by Karen Davila. Did the poor woman have the choice to say no?

Wasn’t this manner of gathering news discussed at the ``Media Nation 2’’ assembly last month? The network’s news gatekeepers and top guns, among them, Luchi Cruz-Valdez and Maria Ressa (who moved in from CNN), were present there. Emergency room journalism still thrives hereabouts.

I declare loudly that we must appreciate the media’s presence in Mabini. That said, may I also say that if I allowed my words to match the intensity of my disgust on seeing that bedside behavior, I would say things differently.

And so I simply ask the ABS-CBN team, why? Not, why did you do it, which begs for a justification. Why, as in, why were you so insensitive?