Discover The Gift

Monday Bible Study

2012-01-03T03:02:00.000-08:00

I shall be conducting a weekly (every Monday) Bible Study at the St Ignatius Cathedral, Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, 7:30-9:30 in the evening. Everybody is welcome & there is no entrance fee. Starting 09 January 2012, the Book of Exodus will be read & explained.

Star Child Cry

2011-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

“I am also a child of stardust, whose story can be traced back to a time before the earth was formed, back to a generation of stars now gone forever, but whose violent deaths in supernovas transformed stellar hydrogen into the dust that eventually became our planet—and my flesh” (Robert John Russell).
Do we see others, especially the little ones who suffer from ecological & social disasters, as children of stardust & siblings of the Star Child whom the Magi sought to worship & whom Herod sought to kill?
Voices are heard through media, weeping & great mourning, young & old weeping for their kith & kin, because they are no more.
May we let our inner star guide us to find ways & means to comfort those who mourn. May we seek & see God’s hidden presence especially among the small, the poor, the hungry & those who suffer great loss.
May national & local governments respond promptly & adequately to ecological & social disasters. May ordinary citizens do their necessary share.
Let us give & receive a Blessed Christmas!

Aquino Petition after November 25 Conviction

2011-11-22T23:32:00.000-08:00

At 10:25 in the evening of 25 November 1977, Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino was pronounced guilty of subversion, murder & illegal possession of firearms by Military Commission No. 2, which was headed by Brig. Gen. Jose Syjuco, during the Martial Law regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Ninoy was sentenced to death by firing squad.

On December 2, Attorneys Raul M. Gonzalez & Sedfrey A. Ordonez, representing Ninoy’s mother, Aurora Aquino, filed with the Supreme Court a petition for Habeas Corpus for the release of Ninoy from military custody & unlawful restraint. On this basis, the Supreme Court issued a restraining order against his execution.

The petition emphasized that Ninoy was denied equal protection of the laws & that the trial & conviction under Military Commission No. 2 were void for the following reasons.
1. The judgment of conviction was rushed in an immoral way. (Imagine concluding a criminal trial at night and at such a late hour.) The military counsel assigned to Ninoy failed in providing him effective legal assistance & he was denied the chance to give a closing argument.
2. Jurisdiction over his cases properly belonged to a civilian court, & the Military Commission discriminated against him by denying his motion for the transfer of his cases to the proper civilian court, even though more than 3,000 cases under military tribunals already had been transferred.
3. Ninoy was prosecuted for illegal possession of firearms & other crimes on the basis of presidential orders that were issued only after his arrest. Thus the “legal” basis was laid down after the occurrence of the alleged “illegal” acts.
4. “Leaders & followers [of the Moro National Liberation Front] who have risen in arms against the government & who have killed a big number of government troops in open combat have been pampered, benefited & rewarded while Benigno Aquino Jr is singled out for indictment & public humiliation.”

The petition is reproduced as Appendix C in the book, “Testament from a Prison Cell,” by Benigno Aquino Jr. The second edition of the book was published in 2000 in Makati City by the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation. My copy at hand contains a handwritten dedication to “dear Pat & Raul (Gonzalez)” by Cory Aquino dated 09 October 2003.

Weekly Bible Study

2011-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

Everybody is welcome to a regular Bible Study that I conduct at the St. Ignatius Cathedral, Camp Aguinaldo, every Monday evening, 7:30-9:30. We are in the middle of the Book of Genesis.

Fully Functional Instructional Materials Council?

2011-09-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS) of the Department of Education has this (sole) official mandate: "Provide technical assistance to the Instructional Materials Council in the formulation and adoption of policies and guidelines, in the development, evaluation, and procurement of textbooks and other instructional materials."
The IMCS is the Secretariat of a more important body, the Council, which is supposed to make final decisions on textbook procurement & to oversee the evaluation of instructional materials for all public elementary & secondary schools.
Besides the DepEd Secretary & the 2 directors of the bureaus of elementary & secondary education, who are the members of the Instructional Materials Council? Does the membership include recognized textbook specialists from the private school system? Perhaps the Council should also include a competent representative of a relevant citizens organization or civil society group.

How often does the current Council meet as a whole body? Are there official records of its meetings? When was its last meeting? Is its Secretariat pro-active enough in ensuring that the Council is fully functional & has complete membership that holds meetings periodically or as often as necessary?
On a related matter, the IMCS, the Secretariat of the current Council, seems to be on the verge of persuading some high officials of the DepEd to ask Congress to return to the DepEd the responsibility of publishing the textbooks for the public school system.
Should the tasks of writing and producing the textbooks be returned to the DepEd and taken away from the textbook publishers of the book industry, when the DepEd through the IMCS has not yet been able to establish a solid track record in implementing an efficient and effective evaluation system for the textbooks available for procurement?
What makes the IMCS so sure it can do better in the whole publication process (with research, writing, evaluating, editing, and designing activities)?
The IMCS would point to the past, especially the era of the Marcos dictatorship, when the Department of Education produced its own textbooks through an Instructional Materials Development Corporation. Can the IMCS produce enough studies from independent & competent researchers that have compared textbooks before & after the 1995 privatization of DepEd textbook procurement, & which show that the DepEd-published textbooks were clearly superior?

For public school textbook procurement reform, I reiterate my proposal to remove the actual evaluation of the textbooks from the responsibilities of the Secretariat of an incomplete Instructional Materials Council. The IMCS does not have enough experts of its own, but usually taps many external experts from public and private academic institutions.
Also, given the budgetary constraints of the IMCS, it gives relatively low compensation to the external experts, and thus the IMCS neither attracts the best experts nor provides enough incentives for the experts to exert their best efforts in the evaluation process.

It would be more efficient to decentralize textbook evaluation by accrediting appropriate departments of reputable academic institutions and Centers of Excellence like the UP National Institute of Science and Mathematics Education, the Ateneo de Manila Department of English, the UST Department of Science, the De la Salle University Department of Filipino, etc. to evaluate the textbooks.

The role of a reconstituted & fully functional Instructional Materials Council then would be to accredit those institutions and centers, which can charge reasonably competitive evaluation fees from the textbook publishers. In this way, the DepEd can do away with its complex 5-step evaluation system, which unfortunately has allowed some low quality textbooks to squeak through owing to the loopholes created yet obscured by the sheer complexity of the system.

In this scheme, the Instructional Materials Council would consider for DepEd procurement only those series of textbooks that obtained seals of approval from the accredited institutions and centers, and it should require that the names of the approving institutions and centers be prominently displayed on the textbooks themselves. The risk of ruining their reputations would push the institutions and centers to make sure that they do a good job.
The Council would do occasional random checking in which, if it found a low quality textbook among those that an accredited institution had approved, it would pursue an established process to remove accreditation from the negligent institution.

In this scheme, the competition in the public school textbook procurement system among publishers whose textbooks obtained seals of approval would be on the basis of price and some technical requirements and no longer on textbook quality.

This proposal is consistent with National Book Policy #5, which provides that “the State shall support an efficient book utilization program for educational institutions.” Also, Implementing Policy 5.5 states: “the Department of Education shall initiate measures to decentralize evaluation of textbooks, references and other instructional materials particularly those which are locally developed and/or intended for specific geographic areas or cultural communities.”

The DepEd's over-centralized and complex system of large-scale textbook procurement strongly attracts attempts at grand corruption that involves some textbook publishers and those DepEd bureaucrats who discover the loopholes created and obscured by the complexity of the system.
(Comments are welcome.)

Words without Borders

2011-09-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

The National Book Development Board believes that the promotion of lifelong learning through readership leads to genuine human development, national poverty reduction, and book industry development in the medium to long terms.
We live in a world of words, words that work and don’t work, words that matter & don’t. Words in books can cross safely and become active beyond the borders of time and space, especially if leaders & policy-makers will continue to adhere to the UNESCO principle & the 1950 Florence Agreement on the free flow of information & knowledge.
Also, words and books that endure and spread are products usually of substantial investments in time, effort & resources on the part of creative persons and entrepreneurs. To develop authorship and the creative sector, the NBDB initiated and guided the enactment into law of the National Book Development Trust Fund to support through annual grants Philippine authorship in science and technology and other learning areas where more Philippine publications are needed.

For the very first set of Trust Fund grants, the NBDB received a total of 24 applications from budding & veteran authors. For our upcoming Book Development Month celebration this November, at least 3 deserving authors will receive grants of a minimum of 200,000 pesos each for submissions under the categories of the English Novel, Health & Wellness, and Environment & Biodiversity including Climate Change Adaptation. As the interest of the Trust Fund grows, a bigger number of grants over a wider set of categories can be given next year.
Like government support for authors, the book industry has improved through the years. The private sector has been the main driver of industry growth. Government has not been & should not be the main driver, but certainly government has the important role of preserving and enhancing the environment for healthy competition and growth in a book market with domestic and foreign players.
Through the years, I have been privileged to witness how the Philippine book industry has grown. With the spread of the digital revolution, I am confident that the fundamentals of our book industry have become solid & strong enough to meet the challenges and to grasp the opportunities of this revolution.

May we see book readership & book development in the coming years flourishing with more Philippine publications in printed & electronic forms that cross the borders of time and space, more books that contribute to lifelong learning, books that help us live with more wisdom, joy, or peace so that, whenever we turn to the book of day-to-day life, we do better in enriching its pages with trustworthy words and meaningful works, words and works that cross the boundaries of ignorance, indifference and intolerance.

Naked Christ against the Phallus

2011-08-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

It is unfair & offensive to put a phallus or erect penis on an image of Christ, as what was done in a controversial art exhibit at the CCP. Jesus of Nazareth did not develop or acquire a phallic mentality, which pushes males to be “big, hard & up” in their physique, thinking & attitude & which spits at what is “small, soft & down.”

Jesus taught: “unless you change & become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). He also let a desperate non-Jewish woman to broaden radically his view about his mission of being “sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” For his initial inaction to her plea for the healing of her daughter, he offered the “hard” reason that “it is not right to take the children’s bread & toss it to their dogs.”

Jesus listened to & learned from the Canaanite woman's “soft” reasoning that “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall down from their masters’ table” (Mt 15:21-28). He let her broaden or change his mind. This is another important stage in the development of Jesus’ great faith in the heavenly Father who loves especially the downtrodden & little ones among the scattered daughters & sons of God (see also my 03 October 2010 blogpost).

Jesus became the clear opposite of the phallus when he died naked on the cross, stripped of clothes & bare of friends, as “all the disciples deserted him & fled” (Mt 26:56) & only women followers witnessed his death “from a distance” (27:55). The naked Christ on the cross is a historically true picture of the outward impotence of somebody who did not save himself, in order to save others. No wonder Paul wrote, “Christ crucified: a scandal to Jews & folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23).

While any image of Christ with a phallus is offensive, offended Christians ought to guard against the phallic reaction of self-righteous or arrogant rage against the artist and other blameworthy persons involved.

The exposure of genitals in an artistic work may be meaningful & not crude, vulgar or offensive. For example, an artistic depiction of a totally naked Christ dying or dead on the cross can be authentic & meaningful from the perspectives of history & theology. (See also my 31 March 2010 blog post; your comments are welcome.)

Art and the Good News

2011-08-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

It would be beneficial to explore the potency of day-to-day art especially of the poor as a method and expression of the integral evangelization and the renewal of catechesis, worship and the social apostolate proposed twenty years ago by the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II).

“In ancestral communities, art has never been split from the flow of daily activities” (Katrin De Guia). Day-to-day art in non-modern, modern & post-modern communities is art from real life. As an activity, it “improves on what it finds” in the local environment such as pebbles, dried leaves and flowers, and scrap wood, metal and cloth, and recycles and transfigures what will otherwise end up as trash or refuse. An example of day-to-day art by a “Filipino culture-bearer” is that of Gregorio ‘Boy’ Masculino (b. 1960) of Oton, Iloilo.

One has to distinguish the “everyday art” of comfortable communities from the day-to-day art of the poor, whose experiences of chaos, violence, hope and joy are not as pure and simple as some comfortable thinkers tend to think they are.
One can make a distinction between art as a product and art as an activity. The first meaning of art, the artwork, reflects in its authenticity or beauty the infinite beauty of God.

The second meaning is the act of creativity in which the artist participates in the creativity of the Spirit of the Divine Artist and cultivates a field of energy where new or deeper relationships, enabled by the same Spirit of fellowship and communion, can be discovered by the artist and his or her “audience.” In “contemporary art,” there has been a “transition from objects to relationships,” and its purpose “is to create a new space-time experience” (Sebastian Elavathingal).
For integral evangelization, inculturation, and catechetical renewal, the potency of the day-to-day art of the poor includes but goes far beyond the functional or practical purpose of helping them appreciate or digest church teachings. (Comments are welcome.)

Jesus' Great Faith

2011-08-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

The great faith of Jesus empowered him to walk calmly & cross over troubled waters in his life especially in times when he felt a combination of grief, fear & fatigue. He felt grief & fear when he was told that his former mentor, John the Baptist, a prophet of the heavenly kingdom, was beheaded by the shameless Herod Antipas (Matthew 14:1-13). He felt fatigue after a whole day of healing & feeding the souls and bodies of a crowd of thousands of men, women & children (14:14-21).

“He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray” (14:23). Although he was physically alone in his grief & fatigue, he perceived the presence of the Spirit of the loving Father in the sound of sheer silence as he prayed in solitude.

Similarly, while the prophet Elijah felt his failure, fear & fatigue after he fled from the wrathful & vengeful queen Jezebel, he recognized the very presence of Yhwh not in powerful events like a great storm, an earthquake & then a conflagration but in the sound of sheer silence (1 Kings 19:9-13).
The faith of Jesus, his faith in the Father’s great love for him & for all the weary daughters & sons of God, was tested in moments of grief, fear & fatigue & it was nurtured in moments of prayer. His Spirit of faith & not our own merit saves us from the destructiveness of our sinful passions & addictions.
“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26). The sound of sheer silence in prayer is primarily God’s gift & not anybody’s achievement, and thus we ought to be sober and never to be arrogant even toward those who are, or are perceived to be, faithless, sinful, or corrupt.

Jesus, the meek Messiah, learned from an assertive non-Jewish woman, and discovered the inadequacy of his initial understanding of his mission as “sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 15:24). His faith was enriched by the great faith of the Canaanite woman who wanted the healing of her ailing daughter.

May Christ’s Spirit of faith help believers to cross over troubled waters, to guard against arrogance & to be receptive to spiritual enrichment from the “outsider” & the lowly. (See also my 03 October 2010 blog post; your comments are welcome.)

Leadership & Culture Change in the Bureaucracy

2011-07-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

The gains of the (P-Noy) Aquino administration in fighting corruption and reducing poverty cannot be consolidated & sustained without smart efforts at reforming the bureaucracy & changing the culture(s) within public agencies and organizations.
The book, "Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework," 3rd edition, by Kim Cameron & Robert Quinn (San Francisco, 2011) offers a formula for organizational culture change based on research done on many business organizations mostly in North America & Western Europe.

The book describes 4 major culture types: a. Hierarchy (Control) Culture, b. Market (Compete) Culture, c. Clan (Collaborate) Culture, d. Adhocracy (Create) Culture.
Applying the descriptions to the Philippine bureaucracy, it appears that the dominant culture in our public agencies is the clan culture. For the book, the competencies of successful leaders in a clan culture are: leading through teamwork & interpersonal relationships, ensuring the personal growth of followers, & leading through collaboration and caring.
The formal norms of the bureaucracy bequeathed to us by the United States, however, belong more to the hierarchy (control) culture in which the competencies of successful leaders are: leading through rational analysis, information clarity, ensuring accuracy & consistency in quality, & leading through measurement.

In the Philippine context, research can be pursued on the key leadership competencies and strategies (e.g. culture-sensitive communication strategy) which can bring about the reconciliation, consolidation, or reform of these distinct cultures so that every
agency can greatly improve the development and implementation of its public service programs & projects.
What are reliable & innovative ways & means to develop the necessary competencies? Also how does a leader introduce elements of the "adhocracy" culture so that the public agency can be agile and the implementation of programs innovative?
One area of research can be the determination of the applicability & limitations of the "competing values framework" to diagnosing & changing Philippine public organizations.
(Your comments or thoughts on the matter are most welcome.)

Santisima Trinidad (Most Holy Trinity)

2011-06-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

In his very short story, “Santisima Trinidad,” from his 2011 collection, “100 Kislap” [100 Flashes], Abdon Balde Jr narrates:
“I told Cora, my daughter, to look after her son, my grandson Jeco, the stubborn Jeco, to look after his needs. Negligent too, busy with Facebook. So there...
“The naughty Jeco, just three years old, asked for a Stik-O snack from his grandma. And this Trinidad of mine could not refuse the grandson, even with rheumatism & after an operation in which some metal was inserted in her hipbone, she tried to reach for the cabinet, and unable, pulled a chair, climbed up & stood on the chair with a broken leg (sigh)...
“Both Cora & I heard the thud on the floor. I thought it was some heavy sack!
“When Jerry arrived, he, Cora & Jeco are still a whole family—-bound to us. But I...
“Cora can fix the bed, the pillow, but when it is hot, will she be patient enough to keep on fanning me? Who will button me when I am unbuttoned? Clean my dentures? And in the toilet, Santisima!
“Sometimes I tell myself I wish it had been me.” [My translation from the original Filipino]
The Holy Trinity is first a story before it is a dogmatic teaching, doctrine or formula. The doctrinal expression, “Most Holy Trinity,” carries the spark of a story. True believers in the story will appreciate these questions: Do we still know life without the Most Holy Trinity?

Is the Spirit of the beloved Son our “welcome coolness in the heat”? In other words of the Sequence for Pentecost Sunday, have we known the Spirit to “shed a ray of light divine...heal our wounds, our strength renew...wash the stains of guilt away”?
As a story, the Trinity can be summarized thus: God so loved the world that he sent the beloved Son, who has saved the world by sharing for ever the Spirit of authentic love he received from the Father of mercy.
The Triune formula “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is a symbolic summary of the experience of the community of believers as regards the Spirit of the Son loved by the Father within every believer, among believers & beyond them.

The Trinity is a great story, but is it true? Why are there many believers from generation to generation even though they have never touched the glorified body of Jesus?
The Trinity is a mysterious story of presencing & absencing: the movement & prevalence of inner radiance even in the absence of bodies. The loving Father is the origin of everybody & everything, but has neither origin nor body. The beloved Son originates from the Father, whose Spirit of love is poured first on the Son, whose glorified body is nowhere on earth. The Holy Spirit originates from the Father, is bodiless, and binds the Father and the Son inseparably.
Why are there true believers in this story?
First, because they have felt the spark and movement of the Spirit of the beloved Son within them. Second, they have tasted the fruit of the Spirit (and have known the joy of sowing seeds for future fruits).
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control” (Galatians 5:22).

The fruit of the Spirit of the Father and the Son offer seeds or sparks of the Trinity in the day-to-day lives of believers. “The Christian life of full of Trinity” (Origen, 3rd c). Are there enough believers who discover the many sparks of the Trinity in their lives?

“To those who seek, enough signs are given” (Blaise Pascal, 17th c). The believer who seeks the Spirit of love of the Father and the Son will find its presence and the traces of its movement in one’s life. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).
In continual prayer for the gift of the Spirit & in the practice of sowing seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control, believers will discover many sparks of the Trinity in their day-to-day lives so much so that they will find their fulfilment & liberation in communion with the Trinity.

Without rays of Trinitarian light, human life will sink into the "graves of craving" (compare Numbers 11:31-34). “Self-gratification, self-indulgence, self-satisfaction & the abandonment of ourselves to our cravings...is ultimately the way to death of the spirit” (John Navone, SJ).
We have a choice between the closed story of the graves of craving and the open (expansive) story of the empty tomb of Christ. “The Jesus story tells us that our own story finds its source, its direction & its fulfilment in sharing the life of the Blessed Trinity” (Navone).

For believers who discover sparks of the Trinity in the ordinary and historic events in their lives, the story of the Trinity becomes their life-story that continues to expand toward the whole wide world and will never end.
(Your comments, dear readers, are most welcome.)

Touch not (the glorified body)

2011-04-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

Randy David, in his Easter Sunday piece at the PDI, suggests that Jose Rizal’s use of “Noli Me Tangere” (Touch Me Not) as the title of his 1st novel might give a better understanding of what the phrase meant when the Risen Jesus uttered it to Mary Magdalene in John’s gospel (20:17).

For David, Rizal wanted his Spanish & Filipino readers to let go of, or to stop clinging to, the decadent & morbid colonial society on the islands & instead to work for the emergence of a new nation. David does not make it clear, however, what Mary Magdalene in the gospel had to let go.

Mary had to let go of her incomplete understanding of Jesus as her beloved teacher & her incomplete understanding of her identity & mission as a female disciple. The Risen Jesus is not just her beloved teacher but the beloved Son of the merciful Father in whose Spirit we become true brothers, sisters & apostles. Jesus was ascending to his Father (and our Father) in order to fulfil this higher truth.
Christ wants a personal relationship with each disciple but in community. This is what he intimated to Mary: “she must learn to relate to him in community & she must come to know him as he is in relation to God his Father...He is trying to draw her into the Risen Body of Christ, larger than her personal connection to him.” (Megan McKenna)
Also, Jesus wanted Mary to let go of the pervasive patriarchal belief that women cannot be reliable witnesses to truth. Jesus entrusted Mary with the mission to go to the other disciples to proclaim & bear witness to his resurrection & glorification. Just as Jesus bore witness to his loving Father, every disciple must bear witness, must have an apostolate.
David prefers the translation, “Do not cling to me,” over “Touch me not,” which is closer to the original Greek text, “Me mou haptou” (Not me touch), of John 20:17. What insight does one gain by puzzling over the original text? It could have meant: Not Me but my brothers & sisters (need your) touch (& there you touch Me).
Especially if the experience of touching were potentially very satisfying, to prevent touching would be to prevent clinging & having the memory of the experience as a source of distraction from necessary work (the apostolate). “(There is) a time to scatter stones & a time to gather them, a time to embrace & a time to refrain” (Ecclesiastes 3:5). The time for embracing the glorified body of Christ is at the completion of the mission at the great wedding feast in the new heaven & new earth.
Christ wanted Mary to focus on the great & necessary work he was entrusting her: courageously go to the community, especially to the male disciples, & bear witness to the full truth & thus turn the community into a true body of Christ in whose communion there is no hierarchy among male & female.
On earth Christ wants his witnesses, ministers & missionaries to touch his glorified body by taking care of the body of believers. (In the case of Thomas the Twin, Christ responded to his challenge by inviting him to touch the scars of his glorified body, and this would have reminded Thomas how he abandoned & wounded his beloved teacher despite his bold declaration to his peers: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" [John 11:16].)
For those of us who derive satisfaction, or perverse pleasure, from periodic self-flagellation on everything that is wrong about our country, may this Easter season help us gain the courage & the focus to do our share in the challenging work of building our nation, community by community, family by family, house by house, stone by stone, board by board, day by day.

Glory & Beauty of Christ's Scarred Body

2011-04-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

The glorified body of Christ is beautiful with his scars, and thus the lives of his believers can radiate & captivate through their scars & wounds.
In his book of inspirational essays, “Ah, Wilderness! A Journey through Sacred Time” (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008), which won a National Book Award in 2009, the Cebu writer and Regional Trial Court judge, Simeon Dumdum Jr, talks about the beauty of the Risen Christ who, in the Gospel of John (20:19-23), stands among the fearful disciples who abandoned him, offers them peace, and shows them his wounded hands and side. He writes (pp 122-23):
“This is how the Lord wants us to discern his presence in each other – by our wounds, those that the world considers the marks of defeat. And above all, by our joy, our sense of triumph over our bitterness for the dreadful & unpleasant things that have happened to us…
“Only when we begin to show the wounds on our hands & sides – loss of loved ones, unemployment, drug addiction, failure of relationships, depression – will we start to recognize each other. Because then we will be shedding off our masks & will be most ourselves, unprotected by pride.
“And if, besides, we acknowledge that we need, and ask for, grace to heal our wounds, we might even see in each other the beauty of Christ shining through.”
Christ entrusts believers with the mission to show to one another the beauty & peace of his Father through their wounded & scarred lives in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, wisdom & discernment. Thus, at proper instances, Christian preachers, teachers & "witnesses," to be more effective or persuasive, have to talk about their personal or deep wounds and how the Spirit of Christ within & around them has healed or is healing them.
Dumdum mentions that, after the pain of the death of a daughter, he yearned “for a faith that had in it something more certain & solid than blind trust.” His reflective essays show the Spirit's response to his yearning: faith that is enlightened, enlightening & enthralling.

Suicide as Enigma

2011-02-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

Anybody who wants to wrestle with the baffling suicide of a former high official with a "strong" personality ought to look for and read the book, "Jaime Ongpin The Enigma: A Profile of the Filipino as Manager," by the late National Artist Nick Joaquin, & published in 1990 (ISBN 971-91184-1-5) by the Jaime V. Ongpin Institute of Business and Government of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. The Jaime Ongpin Institute later became the Ateneo School of Government.

Before he committed suicide on 07 December 1987, Jimmy Ongpin was the first Finance Secretary of Pres. Corazon Aquino. When he was the first Filipino president of the multinational mining company, Benguet Corporation, Jimmy Ongpin dared to publicly criticize the cronyism of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos from 1981 onwards. He was part of the core campaign team, if not the primary campaign finance manager, of Cory Aquino when she decided to challenge Marcos during the 1986 snap election. He was an alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he studied from high school to college, and became Chairman of the University's Board of Trustees.

What drove the 49-year-old achiever & a father of 5 children (of which the youngest was 15) to shoot himself? The apparently disrespectful way in which he was removed from the Cabinet in mid-September 1987? The grilling he got from four Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings in August and September in which he was accused of dishonesty in the sale of assets of a governmment corporation? The persistent media criticism that he was unpatriotic & over-accommodating to the international bankers and creditors of the massive State debt that the Marcos dictatorship left behind? All of the above & some more?

The book is such a good read.

Book Development for Philippine Development

2011-01-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

I humbly propose the following contributions of the National Book Development Board to the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP 2012-2016):
(1) The NBDB shall provide technical support to the Department of Education and Philippine book publishers for the development of textbooks, both printed and electronic, for the additional 3 years of the Enhanced K+12 Basic Education program.
(2) The NBDB shall pursue programs to assist local publishers in increasing the quantity, quality and variety of higher education books, and improving their distribution in all regions of the country.
(3) The NBDB shall monitor periodically the level and quality of book readership among all age sectors of the citizenry, and formulate programs to improve readership.
(4) The NBDB shall pursue programs to support the creative sector in the book industry.
As regards (1), Section 10 of Republic Act 8047 or the 1995 Book Publishing Industry Development Act provides that “the DepEd shall consult with the NBDB in prescribing guidelines, rules, and regulations in preparing the minimum learning competencies, and/or prototypes and other specifications for books required by public elementary and secondary schools.”
As regards (2), our college students and their parents would spend less on imported books if local publishers increased the quantity, quality and variety of higher education books, both printed and electronic. In 2008 and 2009, the US book exports to the Philippines amounted to USD$19.997M and USD$21.281M, respectively (http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/ocg/exp2731.htm). The UK book exports amounted to £ 2.223M in 2008 and £ 2.246M in 2009 (http://www.publishers.org.uk).
To develop local knowledge and create local content in print and electronic formats, the NBDB has organized Academic Publishing Conferences (APC) to offer to higher education institutions several training and development opportunities in which local and foreign book industry experts are involved. We have organized APCs in Quezon City (2007), Cebu (2008), Baguio (2009), Davao (2009), and Makati City (2010).
As regards (3), the NBDB organized the NBDB Readership Survey in 2003 and 2007 with the help of the Social Weather Stations in order to provide to the reading public, educational institutions, and the book industry accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information on the state of Philippine readership nationwide. The NBDB Readership Surveys are the most comprehensive attempts to determine the reading preferences, attitudes and habits of our citizenry.
As regards (4), the NBDB introduced book development interventions to support the creative sector in the book industry by catalyzing the organization of the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society (FILCOLS), a local collective management organization that pursues fair remuneration for copyright-holders and which helps curb illegal photocopying and book piracy.
We have held copyright training activities, and represented the interests of book development stakeholders in the National Committee for Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR) since 2005. According to a World Intellectual Property Organization study by Atty. Emma Francisco, the press and literature sector, which includes book publishing, was the most significant contributor (2.13%) to Philippine GDP among the creative industries.
To support the creative sector the NBDB has organized the 1st Manila International Literary Festival, the 1st National Children’s Book Awards, and the National Book Development Trust Fund to support Philippine authors. We have also professionalized the annual National Book Awards.
For its part, the Philippine book industry increased its yearly output of new books in 2007 (5,518), 2008 (5,819) and 2009 (5,983), based on records from the National Library.
Source Consulted:
Francisco, Emma et al. “The Economic Contribution of Copyright-Based Industries in the Philippines.” http://www.wipo.int/ip-development /cen/creative industry/pdf/1009E-1.pdf p. 20.

Betrayal of Public Trust

2010-12-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago on 07 December 2000, at the opening of the Impeachment Trial of Pres. Joseph Ejercito Estrada which was presided over by the Supreme Court Chief Justice & with the Senators as judges, Congressman Raul M. Gonzalez gave an opening speech as one of the lead prosecutors of the House of Representatives. Below are excerpts:
"Your Honors, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, President of the Philippines, willfully, consciously & maliciously violated his sacred oath by his acts of bribery, graft & corruption, betrayal of public trust & culpable violation of the Constitution.
"I am assigned together with Cong. Oscar Rodriguez, to prove that Pres. Estrada betrayed public trust....
"The Senate will have the singular privilege, never tested in our nation’s history, which hopefully future generations of Filipinos will read with pride, to show that during the 11th Congress the Senate rose to the occasion &, guided only by duty, conscience & truth, left partisan loyalties behind & decided against the President on the basis of evidence that established guilt.
"None of us in this hallowed hall relishes the task before us. But we did not choose to be involved in such reckless & unbridled misconduct of which Pres. Estrada is accused. It is thus duty, though a painful one, to find judgment against the President. Indeed, the impact of the Constitution must be felt: if the President has committed any or all of these charges against him, the Constitution & our people must be served. Hence we are here to do our respective duties: we, to present the case against Pres. Estrada, & you, to rule under your best lights....
"On Sept. 6, 1999, Pres. Estrada ordered a quasi-judicial agency, insulated by law from political pressure & influence, to desist from performing its legitimate function. He issued a directive to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to prevent one of its departments from conducting investigations without prior clearance from the Commission en banc.
"Pres. Estrada’s crony businessman, Dante Tan, became owner of the controlling stocks of a company called BW Resources Corporation at a time when the stock price of the said company was undergoing a surge never before seen in the history of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).
"In January 1999, the price of a BW share was about two pesos (P2.00). By Oct. 10, 1999, the price surged to a high of P107.00 per share. When Dante Tan first bought BW shares in 1998, the price was only 80 centavos per share. BW shares rose from the 16th most heavily traded stock in the PSE in January 1999 to the 1st among the top twenty companies by June 1999 with a total value turnover of P7,139,972,175.00.
"Later, the PSE would report that Dante Tan earned a profit of some P820 million from January to May 1999 alone. By October 1999, the total value turnover of BW shares was P20,619,175,725.00, a record that will not likely be surpassed decades into the future!
"After Oct. 10, 1999, the price of BW shares underwent an abrupt & ignominious fall within a week. BW share price plunged to a low of P22.00 per share.
"These dramatic events of course alarmed responsible officials of the PSE & the SEC, which oversees the former. Both bodies undertook separate investigations that necessarily examined whether the meteoric rise & fall in the price of BW shares was dictated by market forces or by illegal schemes of manipulation by stock traders & others persons.
"While these investigations were being carried out, Pres. Estrada made several questionable phone calls to the heads of both institutions & made representations in favor of Dante Tan. Through not so subtle suggestions, the President applied pressure on the chiefs of the PSE & the SEC to shield Dante Tan from any unfavorable findings that the said agencies might come up with. The President would constantly remind these officers that Dante Tan was his friend.
"'Dante Tan is the victim, not the culprit,' the President would repeatedly say, like a mantra, in these calls. The President interfered with the discharge of the duties of these officials by repeatedly suggesting the exoneration of Dante Tan.
"When the investigations were concluded, all evidence that the PSE & SEC had gathered pointed to the culpability of Dante Tan for insider trading & price manipulation. Pres. Estrada said that Dante Tan was a victim. The evidence showed that Dante Tan was the culprit. The President showed interest in Tan’s immediate exoneration & obstructed the course of justice. Why? Did he have, as evidence seems to suggest, pecuniary interest in BW Resources which went beyond mere cronyism?
"It will be noted that both the PSE & the SEC reports were partial & incomplete, in the sense that the reports did not cover all individuals & persons who might have been involved in the illegal transactions, or benefited therefrom, but were confined to a few brokers. The President’s obstruction of justice prospered because he succeeded in cutting short the investigations, in striking fear in the SEC & PSE officials. He succeeded in confining the reports to incomplete results. He succeeded in covering possible damning evidence against himself, his mistress Guia Gomez, his favorite son JV Ejercito & his other relatives & friends.
"In a country where a majority of the people live in abject poverty, while a small middle class struggle to survive, allowing the few to amass billions of pesos in profits through manipulative schemes further widens the disparities between the few rich and the many poor.
"Stock price manipulation & insider trading seem sophisticated & technical when compared with joblessness, hunger & displacement from farm lands, which are all concrete symptoms of a deep crisis that the President exacerbates by staying in office & imposing himself upon a nation that has withdrawn confidence in his administration & policies.
"I pray to God that our labors, as mandated by the Constitution, will bear fruit that the nation will accept. Let it not end up like a reminder from Phaedrus’ fables: 'A mountain was in labor, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.'
"Permit me to close my piece by quoting a noted authority in Constitutional Law:
'It is now, we believe, considered that impeachment is not confined alone to acts which are forbidden by the Constitution. The better sustained & modern view is that, the provision for impeachment applies not only to high crimes & misdemeanors but also to those which are not defined as criminal but which affect the public welfare. Thus, an official may be impeached for offenses of a political character & for gross betrayal of public interests...for a breach of public duty by malfeasance or maleficence, including conduct such as drunkenness, when habitual or in the performance of official duties, gross indecency, profanity, obscenity, or other language used in the discharge of an official function which tends to bring the office into disrepute.' (W.W. Willoughby)
"Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice. Thank you honorable members of this impeachment tribunal. God bless the Philippines."

Vision of Our Nation at 80

2010-12-06T05:39:00.000-08:00

Raul Maravilla Gonzalez turned eighty (80) years old last December 3. He is an honorable public servant.
He publicly opposed Pres. Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law from its earliest days in 1972 when it was very risky and unpopular to do so. He was part of the defence team of ex-Senator Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino when the dictator had Ninoy tried before a military tribunal that sentenced Ninoy to death. He is one of a few people who visited Ninoy many times in prison. A letter Ninoy wrote him has been reproduced in my 27 August 2009 blog entry.
Raul Gonzalez offered free legal aid to poor victims of the human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship.
He became the 1st Tanodbayan (Ombudsman, 1986-1988) during the presidency of Corazon Aquino.
He was elected Congressman of Iloilo City, his hometown, for three consecutive terms (1995-2004) and became Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2001-2004. He was part of the 12-member official team of Congressmen who prosecuted Pres. Joseph Estrada during his impeachment trial in 2000-2001.
He served as Secretary of Justice in 2004-2009 and then Chief Presidential Legal Counsel during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Below is an excerpt of the speech that Raul Gonzalez gave at his oath-taking as Congressman on 30 June 1995. It contains his vision for Iloilo City & the Philippines throughout his years in public service:

"Come, let us reason together. Let us work together for freedom & justice, for mutual trust & mutual respect. These are the bonds that hold a people together….I pledge to pursue my program of social justice. It is by implementing the constitutionally mandated principle of social justice that we can bridge the wide ocean that divides the very rich and the very poor in our land.
"John F. Kennedy said in ringing terms: 'If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.' Or as Thomas Jefferson opined: 'Widespread poverty & concentrated wealth cannot long endure side by side with democracy.'
"The principle of social justice in our Constitution & the purpose of government are based on the greatest law of all: the welfare of the people. So government must provide things that individuals, especially the poor, cannot provide themselves: preserve the peace; provide a mechanism by which the people’s character can be expressed in local & national affairs; above all, resolve inequalities.
"Because freedom in the Philippines must exist, not only for those who have money & power, but also for the working class, capital must not turn the society into a paradise for the rich & hell for the workers & the poor.
"I entered public service because I have a vision for the City (of Iloilo) & the Nation.
"I see a City & Nation in which law & order is not a mere slogan but a way of life.
"I see a Nation in which your child & my child & every child, regardless of background, receive an education that will permit full development of talents & abilities.
"I see a Nation that has a job for every man & woman who wants to work.
"I see a Nation where the poor will have a little more roof over their heads, a little more clothing to cover their nakedness & a little more food to feed their hunger.
"I see a City & Nation where the urban poor are not called 'squatters' & whose shanties will not be demolished because the small piece of land where their small “castles” stand is finally their own.
"I see a Nation where the poor do not live under bridges, along canals, or along 'da riles,' much less rummage for leftovers in garbage cans.
"I see a Nation where our sick are admitted to hospitals & get free hospitalization & medicine, without having to beg in order to pay for medical bills they can never afford.
"I see a Nation united, its wounds healed, its head high, a Nation with pride in its past & faith in its future, moving with confidence, competence & compassion, a Nation that lives up to the nobility of its religion & the decency of its people.
"We are not fighting for & we shall not attain a Utopia. Indeed, in our City & Nation the work is never finished. All our plans, all our programs, will not be finished in the first 100 days, in the first 1,000 days, in 3 years, or perhaps in the 3 years of another term. But let us begin…."

Justice & the Rule of Law

2010-11-25T05:14:00.000-08:00

No contemporary society can achieve and maintain prosperity without the rule of law, for citizens, families, workers, and local and foreign investors want sufficient safety and predictability for their lives, liberty, and property. Also, “rule of law and access to justice go hand in hand as necessary conditions for a working democracy” (Hague Institute for International Law, 2007).

Inequality of access to justice endangers a contemporary democracy and the rule of law, as it breeds resentment, anti-social behaviour, criminality, violence, and rebellion among social sectors and classes that consider themselves systematically disadvantaged in their pursuit of fairness and right relationships in society.

Among the many challenges to the rule of law and access to justice in the Philippines, there are three that can be effectively addressed by the 2nd Aquino administration. These are: (1) the ordinate delay in the administration of justice, (2) the difficulty of poor litigants to secure the services of good lawyers and to appreciate lawcourt proceedings, and (3) the citizenry’s ineffective exercise of their right to information on official actions and decisions of government.

Challenge: There is inordinate delay in the administration of justice owing to several reasons among which are: (1) the insufficient number of prosecutors and judges which results in case congestion and inefficiency among them, (2) inadequate monitoring and management of cases, (3) insufficient inter-agency co-ordination.

According to the 2008 Annual Report of the Supreme Court, there were 519 vacancies in the Judiciary which constituted nearly 20% of existing court salas.
The prosecutor-to-case ratio is 1:228 in 2007. The average caseload is still too heavy, and the prosecution service is undermanned. Despite recent increases in allowances, many prosecutors are leaving to become either private practitioners or judges. It is estimated that more than 500 additional prosecutors are needed for current caseload to be managed efficiently.
Recommendations to the current administration:
1. Intensify the recruitment of prosecutors to address the disparity in the prosecutor-case ratio, and computerize fully the prosecution service for efficient monitoring by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of all cases for preliminary investigation, evaluation, and petitions for review.
2. Interconnect all the databases of the PNP, NBI, National Prosecution Service, BJMP and BuCor, PDEA, and the Supreme Court Administrator into one Integrated Criminal Justice Information System. This will enable the heads of the agencies in the justice system to retrieve, store, and manage information quickly and efficiently.
3. Operationalize the National Council on the Administration of Justice (NCAJ), created through a MOA among the DOJ, the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Supreme Court, and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, with the Justice Secretary as Chair. The NCAJ should meet regularly (e.g. twice a month) to discuss and agree on specific ways and means to expedite the resolution of big criminal and civil cases without violating due process. Big or priority cases shall be massacres, extra-judicial killings, kidnap-for-ransom, illegal drug trade, plunder, syndicated smuggling, large tax evasion, and breaches of contract involving large local or foreign investments.
4. Support and complete the Supreme Court’s ongoing Action Program for Judicial Reforms (APJR) on case decongestion, judicial systems and procedures improvement, human resource development, and institutional development.

Challenge: Litigants among the poor and marginalized sectors have difficulty in securing the services of good lawyers owing to the financial costs, and they find court proceedings inaccessible and alienating owing to the (English) language used ("Philippine Democracy Assessment," 2010).
Recommendations:
1. Increase substantially the budget of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) in order to upgrade the skills of, and increase allowances and benefits for, public attorneys.
2. Introduce a Commission on Higher Education (CHED) requirement for 3rd or 4th year law students to do an equivalent of six (6) months of free legal aid work with the PAO or with free legal aid groups accredited with the PAO and the IBP before they can graduate. In this way, future lawyers also gain an insight into the reality and struggles of poor litigants and will be more inclined to include free legal aid work in their careers.
3. Direct the CHED and the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino to produce eight (8) manuals of the Rules of Court, and standard legal terms and expressions in many court proceedings, in the 8 major regional languages in order: (a) to enable judges, lawyers, and students of law to learn to conduct court trials in a regional language for the benefit of poor litigants and (b) to contribute to the intellectual development of the regional languages.
4. The CHED has to require law schools to introduce an elective course on the conduct of court trials using a regional language and the use of the concomitant manual on the rules of court in a regional language.
5. The Justice Secretary, as an ex-officio member of the Judicial and Bar Council, should recommend the capability to conduct court trials in a regional language as an additional requirement for applicants to half of the vacant court salas in every region starting 2013.
6. Seek the co-operation of the Supreme Court, and give it substantial budget support, so that, by 2016, at least 200 lawcourts scattered in the 17 regions of the country, or 10% of all courts, are fully capable to conduct court proceedings in a regional language for the benefit of poor litigants.

Challenge: Ordinary citizens and their organizations cannot effectively exercise their right to information in addressing the problem of graft and corruption owing to the absence of rules and procedures on information access.
Recommendations:
1. The President has to issue an Executive Order that enables ordinary citizens and their organizations to exercise effectively their right to information on official acts, transactions, and decisions of agencies of the Executive Department. The EO shall formulate a simple, uniform, and speedy procedure for citizens to gain access to information from any agency of the Executive Department, or shall require within a fixed deadline every agency to formulate and disseminate widely a simple and speedy procedure for information access. The EO shall specify the administrative sanctions for violations of the provisions of the EO.
2. Certify as a priority administration bill a Freedom of Information Act that enables ordinary citizens and their organizations to exercise effectively their right to information on official acts, transactions, and decisions of all agencies in all branches of the government. This law will provide citizens a powerful tool to contribute to the government’s anti-corruption effort.
3. Certify as a priority administration bill a Whistleblower Protection Act. Engender a “positive whistleblowing culture” wherein people will not be afraid to disclose information on official malfeasance. By exposing graft and corruption in government, whistleblowers promote the public good and thus should be protected and rewarded by the State. Government should adopt as its official policy (perhaps initially thru the issuance of an Executive Order and later through the passage of a Whistleblower Protection Law) the protection of whistleblowers and the establishment of a system of monetary rewards for them.

Good Books, True Friends

2010-11-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

A good book communicates without judging your ability to understand it, and gives you a chance to read it again and again. A good book keeps you company, and continues to do so long after you have finished reading it, as its words and conjured images stay in your mind and heart. With a good book, you are not alone, and this is what a true friend makes you feel.
Especially for the coming Christmas holidays, the NBDB invites everybody to spend time with good books & true friends. There might be friends just waiting for you in your bookshelf. Or find and get to know them by visiting libraries and bookstores. Then proudly take them to your kith and kin.
The great ideal of the NBDB is to make the Philippines a reading nation and a publishing hub in Asia. Our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, wrote: "It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a grear ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice."
The NBDB urges you to hekp build our nation, stone by stone, board by board, link by link, into a living edifice of people who are rich in true friends, good books, and great works.

Communion of Saints

2010-10-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

All Saints’ Day is a celebration of the Communion of Saints, the Communion of all the Faithful, both living and dead. Thus, it is also our feast day, and it is a mistake to celebrate only the departed ones who have been canonized or officially recognized as holy.
In the letters of the apostle Paul, “the saints” refer primarily to living members of the Christian communities (see e.g. 2 Corinthians 1:1). Paul organized a collection in the regions where he founded communities, and “Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:26). Living people were the original subjects of the Beatitudes of Jesus which would be the gospel reading on All Saints’ Day.

In “Mga Kataga sa Teolohiyang Doktrinal” [Terms in Doctrinal Theology], the Communion of Saints is dynamically translated as “Damayan ng mga Tapat,” and is described as follows:
ang matatag na sandiwaan, paghahating-kapatid sa mga kaloob ng Diyos, at walang-kamatayang bayanihan ng lahat ng mga tapat kay Kristo, mga tapat na nabubuhay at mga tapat na sumakabilang buhay; tinatawag ding pakikipag-isa ng mga banal. Ito’y bukluran sa iisang Diwa ni Kristo na nakikilala’t nadarama lalo na sa pagdiriwang ng iisang binyag at iisang salu-salo ng Panginoon.
It is a solid sharing in the Spirit, the brotherly sharing of God’s gifts, and the undying solidarity of all of Christ’s faithful, the faithful in this life and in the next. This communion in the one Spirit is experienced and expressed especially in the celebration of one baptism and one supper of the Lord.
The Communion of the Faithful is misunderstood or rejected by those who are devoted to patron saints but are indifferent to or neglectful of needy brothers and sisters in this life. The real Communion of the Faithful entails solidarity and mutual aid to address physical, psychological and spiritual needs.
This is a Communion not of perfect people but of forgiven sinners like the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, who resolved: “I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).

By visiting the cemeteries and praying for our beloved dead on All Saints’ Day, we are expressing our hope in the mercy of God and freedom from sin for our departed loved ones. “Anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom 6:7), and thus we hope that our dearly departed are counted among Christ’s faithful, who have been set free.
Source:
de Guzman, Emmanuel, Joselito Henson, Reginald Cruz and Dennis Gonzalez. “Mga Kataga sa Teolohiyang Doktrinal.” Quezon City, 2001.

Private and Public Sinners

2010-10-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

Only Luke’s gospel has the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Lk 18:9-14). The parable shows divine acceptance of the public sinner who humbly requests for mercy, on the one hand, and divine disapproval of the private sinner who looks down on the public sinner on the other.
Why were tax collectors considered public sinners? According to E.P. Sanders ("Historical Figure of Jesus," 1993), the tax collectors included customs officers, and they were mostly petty functionaries. The small towns around Galilee’s large lake (the Sea of Galilee) exported and imported goods. The customs officers collected taxes on the exported and imported commodities. In Galilee, these collections were then turned over to the puppet king, Herod Antipas, who in turn had to pay tribute to Rome.

There were indeed tax collectors who cheated and enriched themselves by charging more than the required amounts. Yet even if some were honest, tax collectors were seen as instruments of Herod and Rome, instruments of oppression, and thus they would be disliked by people in general.

As for the private sinner, he is usually blind to his hidden sins or sinful attitudes of arrogance, envy, and resentment. Jesus was chosen and sent to bring about “recovery of sight for the blind” especially for the spiritually blind (Lk 4:18). The merciful Father wants the conversion of both private and public sinners and their adoption of a new way of seeing that will lead to their reconciliation with God and with one another.
Another private sinner in Luke’s gospel is the older son in the parable of the gracious father with two (lost) sons (15:11-32) which is the longest parable in all the gospels and is exclusive to Luke. The younger son left his father and became a loser and public sinner, “but the older son has never really been there [with his father].” For years he has been “slaving for his father, resentful, selfish and angry” (Megan McKenna).
“Luke presents the mission and message of Jesus as a prophetic critique of the status quo” (Dennis Sweetland). This status quo is a world of separation, inequity or enmity between rich and poor, insider and outsider, male and female, private sinner and public sinner.
Before his conversion, Saul was a private sinner: “a Pharisee…[whose] legalistic righteousness [was] faultless” (Philippians 3:5-6). As an apostle, Paul preached the Gospel in season and out of season, and suffered as a good soldier of Christ.
The apostle experienced persecution in which he said, “no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me.” Yet like Christ on the cross, he humbly prayed for those who turned their back on him: “may it not be held against them” (2 Timothy 4:16).
We have all sinned. May we accept this deep truth with faith in Christ and be ready to work and suffer for the Gospel of reconciliation until our last days when we can thank God and with deep humility say, like the apostle, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Persistent Widow

2010-10-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Authentic faith, constant prayer, and the pursuit of justice are inseparable in the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). To win over opponents, we need both to lift up our hands in prayer and to act, work, or fight, as illustrated in the story of the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16).
In the parable of the widow, who was one of the most vulnerable figures in ancient society, she faced a formidable obstacle to her pursuit of justice: “a judge who neither feared God nor cared about people” (Lk 18:2). The widow, however, was courageous and persistent.
Somebody cheated or harmed her. Perhaps she was poor and yet her son did not fulfill his duty to provide her some support. Or she had no son, and although still marriageable, her brother-in-law refused to fulfill his duty of marrying her and securing her future. Maybe her adversary gave the judge a bribe.
Because her persistent pleas were wearing him out, the unjust judge decided to grant her justice. He did the right thing for an inferior or selfish reason.
Are we like the courageous widow or the unjust judge? Don’t we sometimes do the right thing for the wrong or inferior reason?
The story-teller and theologian, Megan McKenna, is right: God is like the persistent widow rather than the unjust judge. God is not someone either selfish or indifferent whom we have to pressure, shake up, or wear out through persistent prayers in order that we can get what we want or what we think is good.
God is like the widow. Even though God’s word through the prophets at many times had been ignored or rejected, God persisted and sent the beloved Son to set free all who are imprisoned or oppressed by sin and selfishness. Even though the Son was rejected and executed shamefully, his Spirit remains and keeps on calling us to conversion, justice, peace and mercy.
Some Church leader should put up a "Chapel (or Shrine) of (God) the Persistent Widow." Do we have the deep faith to see God in the widow or in the weak or vulnerable person who persists to seek what is right? May the Lord increase our faith: may the Lord help us to be constant in prayer and steadfast in the pursuit of justice.

Keep Your Head (in Family Planning)

2010-10-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

The unpopularity of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the moral superiority of natural family planning over the use of artificial contraceptives will not be enough to persuade the hierarchy, especially the bishops, to stop making public pronouncements about the issue.
Church leaders have been taught: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2). Indeed when a Church teaching is unpopular, inopportune, or "out of season," this in itself is not enough reason to stop stating and clarifying it.
Unfortunately, some Church officials have not been careful with their public statements such as the premature announcement (or veiled threat) of “civil disobedience” as a right that Church members may exercise in case the State enacts a reproductive health law that will endanger the right to life of the unborn child and will weaken the right of couples to decide the number of their children.
“Keep your head in all situations” (2 Tim 4:5) is a wise reminder to Church leaders on the need for sobriety as they engage in public debate, within a constitutional democratic society, about a complex issue such as the proper ways to help couples to practice responsible parenthood and plan their families. Sobriety is part of the essential discipline of "a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2:3). Sobriety implies restraining oneself from saying things that generate more heat than light.
To keep one's head, or to remain level-headed, in the contemporary debate on family planning and reproductive health entails opening one's ears to other voices especially voices from relevant disciplines like sociology, development economics, medicine and public health.
As it actively engages in the public debate, hopefully with greater intelligence and sobriety, the hierarchy can show better the depth of its convictions by investing more time, personnel, resources, and research in order dramatically to expand and upgrade its own educational programs and efforts, whether parish-based or not, to promote natural family planning especially among couples in urban and rural poor communities in our country.

Healing Faith

2010-10-09T00:56:00.000-07:00

One can define faith as the desire, decision and practice of people to perceive the generosity and inner radiance of God and to express their appreciation through worship, openness to the divine will, and the practice of bearing witness to the Creator’s care and compassion toward creatures.
One of the definitions of “pananampalataya” in “Mga Kataga sa Teolohiyang Doktrinal”[Terms in Doctrinal Theology] is: “hangarin, pasiya, at pagsisikap ng tao na tumanaw ng utang-na-loob sa Bathala sa pamamagitan ng pagsamba at pakikinig sa kanya at paghahayag at pagsasabuhay ng kanyang pagmamagandang-loob sa bawa’t nilalang” (p. 30).
This is the faith that healed the Samaritan with a skin ailment, as “when he saw he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice” (Luke 17:15). In a story that is found only in the gospel of Luke, Jesus cleansed ten men with skin ailments, but only the Samaritan returned to praise God. What happened to the other nine?
Perhaps the nine cleansed Jews were shocked that the Samaritan was also cleansed. Jews considered Samaritans unworthy rivals in the worship of Yhwh. The Samaritans had put up their own temple on Mount Gerizim. Antagonism towards Samaritans was rooted in Jewish history and tradition.
In 2 Kings, after the Israelite Northern Kingdom of Samaria fell to the Assyrian army, “the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites” (2 Kgs 17:24). The new settlers “worshipped Yhwh, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought” (17:33). The Samaritans in Jesus’ time were considered descendants of those settlers who both worshipped Yhwh and served their idols.
Jesus cleansed the Samaritan because his messianic mission is “to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18, Isaiah 58:6) or to release those imprisoned or oppressed by sin, injustice, and prejudice. The Samaritan not only was healed but was saved because of his faith, which was authentic as he came back to express publicly his great appreciation of God’s compassion. Unlike the nine others, the Samaritan underwent authentic healing, he experienced a real miracle, he experienced salvation, as he decided to bear witness to divine compassion. He expressed the faith that heals, the faith that saves.
Perhaps the nine others, although physically cleansed, did not want to be healed of their prejudice. If that were the case, no miracle happened, for there would be no transformation of the heart. The real miracle involves conversion or inner transformation, as "the Kindom of God is within you" when it comes (Lk 17:21).
Jesus also suffered prejudice, for example, from his town-mates in the synagogue who drove him out of the town to throw him down the cliff, after he, who was not known to be an official teacher or guardian of their tradition, dared to remind them of God’s graciousness to outsiders like the widow in Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian during the times of the prophets Elijah and Elisha (Lk 4:24-30).
Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, had a skin ailment, and was instructed by the prophet Elisha to dip himself in the Jordan seven times. He underwent authentic healing, as he went back to Elisha to proclaim that he “will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord” (2 Kgs 5:17).
Jesus went on with his mission even though most of the beneficiaries, the nine others, did not truly believe in the divine will to set all the oppressed free. Jesus went on even though many guardians of the tradition and his own town-mates did not appreciate his ministry. Because of God’s inner radiance, Christ is faithful to his divine mission no matter what happens. “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
Source:
de Guzman, Emmanuel, Joselito Henson, Reginald Cruz and Dennis Gonzalez. “Mga Kataga sa Teolohiyang Doktrinal.” Quezon City, 2001. ISBN 971-92378-0-5.

Faith on the Cross

2010-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Another testimony to the faith of Jesus is his cry on the cross. Read Mark 15:33-39. According to Jürgen Moltmann ("The Crucified God," 1974), a political theologian whose "Theology of Hope" (1964) inspired some of the first-generation liberation theologians, the last words of Jesus in the passion stories of Mark and Matthew indicate that Jesus died as a Godforsaken man, a man who deeply felt abandoned by God.
The cry of Jesus on the cross (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) indicates that he died not only as somebody abandoned by his disciples and friends and rejected by the chief priests. He died also as a Godforsaken man. In his final moments, Jesus did not see any sign of the mercy of the Father. Jesus felt forsaken by God; this was probably the gravest challenge to his faith. This was his last temptation.
Jesus died “with a loud cry” (15:37). This loud cry evokes the cry of a demoniac at the moment when the demon is cast out in Mark’s gospel (1:26, 9:26). This suggests that Jesus experienced demonization while he was on the cross. Indeed he was being demonized as passers-by were insulting and mocking him. And he was also being demonized by his deep feeling of abandonment. Jesus died without receiving any relief from the terrible isolation he felt. An ancient version of the Apostle’s Creed says that Jesus descended “to hell” (ad inferna). His final moments were hellish indeed.
The death of Jesus as a Godforsaken man does not mean that he died in despair or that his faith collapsed in his final moments. Jesus died with the terrible feeling of being abandoned by God, and yet he held on in his trust without the consolation of feeling the presence of the merciful Father, who was hidden and silent. Jesus was able to hold on because his faith had grown so much throughout his life.
The faith of the crucified Jesus was already tried and tested in the temptations and challenges he encountered especially during his public ministry. Thus, after the compassionate Father vindicated and glorified him, Christ can be in solidarity with godforsaken men and women, those who are abandoned by family and friends, those who are abandoned by society, and those who feel abandoned by God.
The cry of Jesus reproduces the first line of Psalm 22, which ends with lines that praise God (vv 22-31). It is highly probable that Jesus knew the whole of Psalm 22. Thus, if he indeed cried out its first line, he most likely was affirming the message of the whole psalm. In preserving his trust despite the intense feeling of being forsaken, Jesus has shown that he is a faithful servant of God, a True Man of Great Faith and the True Believer in the Merciful Father.

The Faith of Jesus

2010-10-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

Jesus practised deep faith throughout his life and shared his faith with his disciples with the duty to guard, develop, and share it from generation to generation.
To speak of the faith of Jesus might strike some Christians as strange or surprising. How can we speak of Jesus’ faith if, as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, he knows the Father fully?

According to some medieval theologians, Jesus was enjoying the beatific vision, the happy and heavenly vision of God, already from the first moment of his conception. In this case, throughout his public ministry and during his trial and execution, were his physical and psychological struggles real or were they only instances of play-acting?

Let us take a look at the testimony of the New Testament. We begin with the story of the healing of the boy with a deaf-mute spirit in Mark 9:16-29. For John Meier ("A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus," vol. 2, 1994), this particular exorcism most probably goes back to the Jesus of history, for there are some remarkable differences between this story and the other exorcism stories.

First, this is the only exorcism in Mark's gospel which refers to the failure of the disciples to perform the requested exorcism. Earlier in this gospel, Jesus already gave the Twelve authority over unclean spirits, and then they themselves performed exorcisms (Mk 6:7,13). Jesus wagered on his disciples, and empowered them to partially actualize God’s Rule even before they seemed ready for it.

The second remarkable aspect is the almost clinical nature of the detailed description of the boy’s affliction. According to Meier, it seems that the boy suffered some form of epilepsy. The third remarkable aspect is the absence of christological titles in the story. Jesus is referred to as “teacher.”

Fourth, the story makes reference to the faith of Jesus. In this story, the one who believes, the one who has faith is no other than Jesus himself. His powerful deed is based on faith, his faith. The boy was healed through his prayer. The story implies that Jesus acts and heals with the power that comes from faith. Jesus is the True Man of Great Faith.
(An interesting insight from the story concerns the unclean spirit that hindered speech. It was a spirit so painful that it was causing the boy to throw himself into fire. According to some psychologists, being unable to express adequately raw emotions is a major cause of violence to oneself or to others. As William Blake [1757-1827] put it:

“I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.” Thus, to prevent people from expressing their feelings is to push them closer to acts of violence. Pastoral agents ought to help plain folks especially the poor to express themselves and assert their rights.)
Another New Testament reference to the faith of Jesus is in the Letter to the Hebrews 12:2, which calls Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” This letter presents Jesus as the first-born in our faith, the first to have lived fully in seeking the will of God. Jesus cannot be described as the pioneer of our faith if he himself did not practise great faith. Now, what is faith?
According to Heb 11:1, “faith is the substance of what we hope for, and the admission of what we do not see.” Now, if Jesus were the pioneer of our faith, and if he were the best model of a man of faith, this implies that there were at least some stages in his life in which he made a personal decision to believe in some things that he himself did not fully see.
We read in Heb 5:7-8: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” Jesus learned to trust, to believe, and to obey God. The faith of Jesus was a process of learning to trust. Just as Jesus developed physically, his faith also went through a process of development. As Luke puts it in 2:52, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people.”
The development process that Jesus underwent could have included experiences of conversion, a radical change in his expectations or outlook. For example, why did Jesus submit to John’s baptism “for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk 2:4)? Perhaps it was the example and preaching of John which helped Jesus to recognize the sinfulness of their society, the sinfulness of the guardians of the tradition, and the inability already of the temple system to be a medium for the forgiveness of sins.
John turned his back on his filial duty to become a priest, and he turned his back on the temple system itself, for he did not require those who came to be baptized for forgiveness to go to the temple afterwards to offer the traditional sin-offering of an unblemished female goat or lamb to be sacrificed (Leviticus 4:27-35). Furthermore, John called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7).
John’s preaching sensitized Jesus to feel the reality of repressed public guilt, which was an effect of sinful social structures. Jesus felt the weight of the public guilt even though, in the Christian view, he himself had no share in the blame for it. His distressing experience of collective guilt might have prompted him to submit to John’s baptism.

John converted Jesus to the belief that God’s Kindom was near and that their society was sinful. Later, Jesus experienced perhaps a second conversion when he decided to pursue his own prophetic ministry in which he, unlike John, emphasized the joy of salvation in a Kindom that was already partially present. Also, Jesus did not reproduce the ascetic life-style of John (see Luke 7:33-34).

The faith of Jesus developed through a process of interaction with various persons from whom he would learn new things. For example, read the story of Jairus’ daughter, who was twelve years old, and the unnamed woman who had a twelve-year hemorrhage in Mk 5:21-43. A feminist christologist, Rita Nakashima Brock ("Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power" [1992] pp.83-84), writes:

"Both females are afflicted with crises associated with the status of women in Greco-Roman and Hebraic society. The adult woman is sick with one of the most polluting signs of female adulthood [see Lev 15:19-30]. The adolescent is on the threshold of a similar curse, puberty. The woman has suffered with bleeding for exactly the same period of time it has taken Jairus’ daughter to reach the official age of puberty and marriageability--twelve years. The woman’s hemorrhage is the affliction of adult women in magnified form; she bleeds endlessly and is perpetually polluting. The authorities, the physicians, have left her poor and sick. They cannot help her disease because the ordinary social structures cannot help her. They are part of her problem....She suffers from her very femaleness. The social structures also interfere with Jesus’ ability to help her because he is a Jewish man. He is not even able to see her. She is invisible to him, lost in the protective maze of his disciples.
"The woman is, nonetheless, determined to be whole. She is able to acknowledge, from the depths of herself, her heart, her desperate need to be healed, to be restored to right relationships. Her heart opens the space for erotic power to surface. She summons the courage to violate a patriarchal social taboo. Though an unclean woman, she touches Jesus in public....In the touching, she is, literally, saved, not just cured in a medical sense, but saved. Her courage in violating a taboo has made her whole."

After Jesus kept looking for the one who touched him, the healed woman, despite her fear, showed herself and acknowledged what she did. Thus, she reaffirmed that she believed that her action, her violation of a patriarchal taboo, was the right thing to do. Jesus responded: “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” He disregarded the fact that he was rendered “unclean” by the touch of an “unclean” woman.
The encounter with the courageous woman taught Jesus a lesson. Afterwards, he could fully appreciate what ails Jairus’ daughter: she was dying because she had begun menstruating and she could not accept the following consequences: she was considered “unclean” and should not be touched, and she knew that her childhood had ended and she could soon be given in marriage perhaps to somebody she did not even know. She was dying, as she was losing respect for her body and her very self. Perhaps she became catatonic in her trauma. Jesus brought her back to life when he touched her (“he took her by the hand”) and helped her to stand up, to be free from shame and self-rejection, and to feel at home with her body.

The deep faith of Jesus developed through a process that not only involved close interaction with the unwashed and the “unclean” but also involved struggles against temptation. According to Heb 4:15: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.” Again, Heb 2:18 says: “Because Jesus himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
The deep faith of Jesus was formed in the midst of struggle, the struggle against temptation, and the struggle to respond to the challenges of his times. Thus, when we are tempted, when we are struggling, when we are suffering, Christ can truly help us for he understands fully what it means to struggle, to suffer, and to be tempted.

Increase Our Faith

2010-09-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

“Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5), as a humble petition to the Lord, is one that will surely be heeded. If bad fathers can sometimes give good gifts to their children, how much more will the divine Father give the Spirit of faith to those who ask him! (Lk 11:13). The Spirit of faith, hope, love and holiness is the primary gift of the merciful Father to Jesus, his disciples, and those who seek rest and relief from sin and suffering. Our primary and persistent prayer ought to be the empowerment and recognition of Christ’s Spirit of faith in our lives and in the world. Unfortunately, many believers pray more for their personal health and wealth.
The gift of faith can be shown through amazing works like healing miracles or some spectacle such as making a tree uproot itself and be planted in the sea. What shows greater or deeper faith, however, is the fulfilment of our duties to God and neighbour day by day with humility and without fanfare so much so that, at the end of the day, we thank God for whatever good we have done and we say, “we are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Lk 17:10).
Great faith is shown by those who pray for enemies, tormentors or persecutors: “Father, forgive them.” It is shown by those who actively hope in divine justice and peace despite a state of affairs in which destruction and violence abound; “the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails; the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (Habakkuk 1:3-4).
The deep faith that Jesus practiced throughout his ministry and offered on the cross is “the good deposit” entrusted to his apostles and disciples down to our times. It is our duty to “guard the good deposit” (2 Timothy 1:14) and develop it. Thus we ought to pray day by day for faith to deepen.

Plus 2 Years of Quality Education?

2010-08-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

The National Book Development Board can help the Department of Education in prescribing the guidelines in preparing the minimum learning competencies and other specifications for the public school textbooks to be used for the additional 2 years of the basic education cycle announced by Pres. Noynoy Aquino and Sec. Armin Luistro, FSC.
If one additional year would mean restoring Grade 7 to elementary education, then I personally propose that the DepEd with the NBDB begin by looking at the learning competencies targeted by reputable private schools that do have Grade 7.
I do hope that the effort that the DepEd will exert to formulate the curiculum and to mobilize the resources for the additional 2 years will be at least equally matched by the effort to ensure that "every child is a reader by Grade 3" and to raise the mean percentage score of the National Achievement Test (NAT) of prospective graduates of Grade 6 to at least 75%.
As of now, many public school children beyond Grade 3 still cannot read and understand a simple paragraph. The NAT mean percentage score, which was 55% when the NAT started in 2002, has improved through the years to 66.33% in 2009, but this is still below the minimum for what can qualify for "mastery" of the targeted learning competencies which is 75%.
Without ensuring the delivery of quality education especially in the current 6 years of elementary education, the additional 2 years would likely result in the lengthening and reinforcement of mediocrity which would mean a great deal of waste of public resources and taxes.

Bureaucratic Reform Opportunity

2010-08-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

With his high trust ratings, Pres. Noynoy Aquino has the political capital to pursue the streamlining and reform of the bureaucracy at least of the Executive branch of government. If he will seize the opportunity, the clear and ultimate target of bureaucratic reform should be the significant and sustainable reduction of rural and urban poverty in the short and medium terms. Thus, any reform should raise efficiency in, and free more resources for, the delivery of basic services in primary health care, disease prevention, basic education, and agricultural and entrepreneurship development.
Bureaucratic reform should preserve also the capability of the State to practice its core competencies: ensure peace and order, administer justice, set monetary policy, ensure territorial integrity and security, practice diplomacy and pursue beneficial international relations.
Outside of its core competencies and poverty-reduction programs, State activities should be tantamount to “steering” and not “rowing,” or the creation of an enabling and regulatory environment for the private sector to do the “rowing” in providing goods and services to the public especially where the private sector is more efficient in doing so.
Any bureaucratic reform should respect the right of government workers to protection against unemployment. Any reform that cannot avoid job losses should be implemented in a humane way.
In my view, these are the characteristics of agencies and units that bureaucratic reform should prioritize: (a) agencies and units that contribute little to poverty reduction, (b) units that do not belong to the core competencies of the State, (c) units that do more “rowing” than “steering,” and (d) units that do not require an act of Congress for its reform, abolition, or merger with another unit.

Arrogance in a Little Learning

2010-07-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

In his June 21 commentary at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Mr. Antonio Calipjo Go attacked the book, "Biology," developed for secondary school students by the University of the Philippines National Institute of Science and Mathematics Education Development (UP NISMED). Mr. Go angrily rejects the findings of several experts in elementary and high school English, Science, Filipino, and Social Studies who have carefully examined and disputed the "errors" he found in textbooks he targeted.

Mr. Go has belatedly admitted to the public that he neither has written a textbook nor has finished college, yet he wants us to believe that he has a monopoly of textbook expertise in several learning areas. He appears to be a publicity-hungry and self-anointed super-expert whose commentaries are combinations of shameless self-glorification and the ravings and rantings of a lonely aging man who has not yet outgrown his unhappy youth. Imagine his arrogance in declaring: "I am the only person who actually tried to do something about the problem of error-riddled textbooks."

Below is a reproduction of the response of UP NISMED to Go:

We read with interest (and not a small amount of frustration) Mr. Antonio Calipjo Go’s commentary on “Biology,” a textbook written by UP NISMED for high school students. He thinks the book is full of “idiocies and inanities, fallacies and errors.” He has a big axe to grind. Allow us to counter this unwarranted hatchet job.

Mr. Go thinks the title of the book is unimaginative. (We think it’s concise.) But he takes issue with the graphic spiny anteater, preferring the term echidna, which does not evoke any vivid image of the animal. He wants monotremes in place of the descriptive egg-laying mammals. He would rather we used marsupials, instead of the suggestive pouched mammals. The study of biology is at times made unnecessarily difficult by the use of words that sound foreign to learners. As UP NISMED appreciates this difficulty, it has put more value on the use of terms that help clarify concepts and are easily understood by the students. But we learned our lesson. Next time we will use terms that impede imagination.

Mr. Go thinks 358 pages are not enough to tackle a “very complex subject.” He prefers the much longer book by Prentice-Hall which he says has 923 pages. (We wonder whether it is possible to teach all the content written in such a book in a single academic year.) To be sure, Mr. Go knows that DepEd prescribes a limited number of pages per textbook. Yet, despite this limitation, all the learning competencies for Second Year Biology have been covered in the book.

Mr. Go thinks that the question, When did humans evolve?, is stupid. In fact, he cannot think of a question more stupid than this. To explain his point, he says that evolution is a very slow process of change occurring over a very long period of time. Apparently, Mr. Go wants to restrict the use of ‘When?’ to mean ‘At what time?’ He thinks it is wrong to use ‘When?’ to mean ‘Over what period?’ Using his rule, no one would be able to ask: When did the dinosaurs rule the Earth? When did the last Ice Age occur? When were the Himalayas formed?

Mr. Go thinks that the caption, Tools used during early times. Are these tools familiar to you? Where are they currently used?, is also stupid. However, he does not explain why. Perhaps he thinks that the writer was expecting the readers to be familiar with the tools or that the tools were being used at present. Just the opposite, the intention is to underscore the readers’ unfamiliarity with the tools and the fact that they are not used anymore. This is to emphasize the level of technology in olden times, that tools at the time were little more than stones with sharp edges and pointed tips.

Mr. Go asks if it is correct to teach, at the basic level, that Bone consists of living cells found in cavities and are surrounded by a hard, nonliving substance. Or, that Xylem cells are usually dead cells with thickened walls while phloem consists of living cells. He asks, “How can cells or substances be considered dead or nonliving when they are embedded deep within a living organism, and without which that organism cannot, in fact, live or survive?” Apparently, Mr. Go’s single criterion for considering a cell as living is the fact that it is embedded within a living organism. This is absolutely wrong. UP NISMED’s definitions for bone and xylem are not incorrect.

We request readers who come across commentaries such as this to be wary and critical. Do your own research and find out if what is being claimed as erroneous truly is erroneous, or merely the misinterpretation of someone who may not be competent in the field that he or she is criticizing. The greater “moral battle” is that which must be waged against those who masquerade as experts and peddle misinformation in the guise of professing love for country.

Truly, a little learning is a dangerous thing.

Jesse Robredo

2010-07-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

Jesse Robredo is an excellent candidate for Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). As Naga City mayor for 19 years (1988-1998, 2001-2010), he walked the straight path in his exercise of leadership. For example, the City Administrator of Naga relates:
“The Mayor once officiated at a wedding. He was given P200,000 in an envelope. When he got back to City Hall, he ordered that a receipt be prepared. He said that we will use it to construct a school and he will show it to the couple so that we can ask for more donations. I admired him. He didn’t get the money even though nobody knew about it.”
Other anecdotes about Robredo can be found in “Breaking New Ground: A Profile of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo” by Francis Isaac and Joy Aceron, in “Frontline Leadership: Stories of 5 Local Chief Executives,” edited by A. Medel, M. Lopa-Perez, and D. Gonzalez, and published in 2007 (ISBN 978-971-92495-2-8).
Robredo transformed Naga from a 3rd class city into a 1st class city and the premier city in the Bicol region. Average household incomes in Naga are 42% higher than the national average and 126% higher than the Bicol average.
Naga has received so many national and international awards such as the 1997 Galing Pook Hall of Fame Award for Excellence in Local Governance, the 2004 Outstanding City School Board Program, and the 2004 UN Public Service Award for ICT Application in Local Government.
Among the many awards Robredo himself has received are the 1996 Konrad Adenauer Medal of Excellence, the 1999 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines, and the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.
To institutionalize transparency and participatory governance in local legislation and policy-making, Robredo pushed for a city ordinance that established the Naga City People’s Council, which is a federation of local non-government organizations. The People’s Council operates as an active and official partner, monitor, and evaluator of the city government. Robredo also instituted the uploading in the city government website of all its procurements, transactions, and licensing procedures and systems.
At the end of his third consecutive term as mayor in 1998, Robredo did not run for another elective office, nor did he field his wife, Leni, or any relative for the mayoral post. Instead, he returned to private life and pursued and completed a master’s degree in public administration at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University. He and his wife dislike the establishment of a political dynasty.
When he first ran and won as mayor in 1988, Jesse Robredo was helped by his uncle and mentor, Luis Robredo Villafuerte, who ran for Camarines Sur governor and won. As Chairman of a presidential commission under the late Pres. Corazon Aquino, Villafuerte obtained a government position for Robredo, who was appointed head of the Bicol River Basin Development Project. The position helped give Robredo, who was a Manila-based manager of San Miguel Corporation, the necessary public exposure in Naga City and Camarines Sur.
During his 1st year as mayor, however, Robredo and his uncle became adversaries over jueteng, an illegal gambling activity. Robredo enforced the illegality of jueteng. Ever since, Villafuerte has considered Robredo ungrateful, and has strongly and publicly opposed him through all his electoral battles.
Although he was born and raised in a middle-class family, Robredo understands poverty and the life of the poor. He said in an interview:
“I grew up with my friends who were squatters living at the back of our house. My basketball teammates were all poor. When I was already in La Salle, those that I got to play basketball with didn’t go to college. Somehow, it gave me a more balanced view that there are poor people that needed to be helped.”
Robredo has the integrity, energy, reform orientation, and track record to be a strong if not the best candidate for DILG Secretary. His long stint at Naga City also shows that he has the necessary cunning and administrative and political skills. As a Japanese researcher on Naga City and Philippine politics attests:
“Robredo has demonstrated his uniquely capable administrative abilities. He has been able to manage two seemingly contradictory tasks: keeping the city government on a sound financial footing and maintaining his strong political machine.” (Takeshi Kawanaka, “Power in a Philippine City,” Chiba, 2002)
Jesse Robredo has exercised frontline leadership in an excellent way. He has soared ahead despite the deadweight of a powerful uncle who continues to oppose him. He has broken new ground in local governance and politics. I firmly believe that the whole country is ready for his way of leadership, hopefully, at the DILG.

Past Presidents Help

2010-06-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

Below are excerpts from inaugural addresses of some past Philippine presidents. Perhaps they can help incoming Pres. Noynoy Aquino, his advisers, and conscientious citizens in forging a consensus on the vision and policies our nation needs. The excerpts are taken from "...So Help Us God: The Presidents of the Philippines and Their Inaugural Addresses" by J. Eduardo Malaya and Jonathan Malaya (Manila: Anvil, 2004).
"Democracy becomes meaningless if it fails to satisfy the primary needs of the common man, if it cannot give him freedom from fear and freedom from want. His happiness and security are the only foundations on which a strong republic can be built. His happiness and security will be foremost among ths goals of my administration.
"We must develop the national economy so that it may better satisfy the material needs of our people. The benefits of any economic or industrial program shall be channeled first to our common people, so that their living standards shall be raised." (Ramon Magsaysay, 30 December 1953)
"The Government will continue its low-cost housing projects and its land redistribution and resettlement program. We shall exert greater effort so that more of our people will eventually acquire homes and lands that they can call their own. Home- and land-owning citizens possess not only a sense of stability and contentment but also the practical patriotism to live for, and if necessary, die for home and country. For upon the face of the patriot must have shone first the firelight of home." (Carlos P. Garcia, 30 December 1957)
"We assume leadership at a time when our nation is in the throes of a moral degeneration unprecedented in our national history. Never within the span of human memory has graft permeated every level of government. The solution of this problem shall call for the exercise of the tremendous persuasive power of the presidency. I shall consider it, therefore, my duty to set a personal example in honesty and uprightness. We must prove that ours is not a nation of hopeless grafters but a race of good and decent men and women." (Diosdado Macapagal, 30 December 1961)
"We must discard complacency without embracing panic; rely on our efforts alone without rejecting the support of others. Let not the future observe that being virile in body we multiplied in number, without increasing in spirit. I do not demand of you more than I shall demand of myself and of government. So seek not from government what you cannot find in yourself.
"In the solution of our problems, the government will lead. But the first duty that confronts us all is how to continue to grow in this nation now a new heart, a new spirit that springs out of the belief that while our dangers be many, and our resources few, there is no problem that cannot be surmounted given but the will and courage. Let every man be his own master, but let him first, and above all, be his own charge." (Ferdinand Marcos, 2nd inaugural, 30 December 1969)
"I would like to appeal to everyone to work for national reconciliation, which is what Ninoy came back home for. I would like to repeat that I am very magnanimous in victory. So I call on all those countrymen of ours who are not yet with us to join us at the earliest possible time so that together we can rebuild our beautiful country." (Corazon Aquino, 25 February 1986)
"Our people spoke of their faith that we Filipinos can be greater than the sum of all the problems that confront us; that we can climb higher than any summit we have already scaled.
"We cannot but interpret the vote as a summons for us to unite and face the future together. The people are not looking for scapegoats, but for the basic things to get done--and get done quickly." (Fidel V. Ramos, 30 June 1992)
"Ngayon pa lamang, ang mga kamag-anak ko ay nilalapitan na ng kung sinu-sino. Kung anu-anong deal at kickback ang ipinapangako.
"Binabalaan ko sila. Walang kaibigan, walang kumpare, walang kamag-anak o anak na maaaring magsamantala sa ngayon. At ngayon pa lamang sinasabi ko sa inyo, nag-aaksaya lamang kayo ng panahon. Huwag ninyo akong subukan." (Joseph Estrada, 30 June 1998)

The Enlightened & the Meek

2010-06-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

It is rewarding to read and reflect on the award-winning novel, "Ilustrado," which won a Palanca and the Man Asian Literary Prize as an unpublished manuscript in 2008. Published in New York this year, its soft-bound Philippine edition (ISBN 978-0-374-94103-1) is already a best-seller in the local bookstores. The novel is a complex and difficult work written with much cleverness by Miguel Syjuco, a young overseas Filipino writer who was born and raised in Manila and lives in Montreal, Canada.

Miguel is an Ateneo alumnus whose parents, ex-TESDA chief Augusto 'Boboy' and Cong. Judy Syjuco, have taken turns in getting elected as Member of the House of Representatives for the 2nd district of Iloilo province since 1998.
"Ilustrado" hints at the hope for inner peace for members of the Philippine ruling and intellectual elite who want to be enlightened bearers of light but are tormented by a mixture of private failures and their “shared guilt” for the arrogance, narcissism, hedonism, and mediocrity that have turned the country into an anarchy of clans and classes.

The novel achieves what one minor character comments: it speaks truth to power without boring the readers but making them laugh periodically and hopefully at themselves. This is achieved through a rich and sometimes dizzying combination of classic and contemporary literary styles and forms such as jokes, blog comments, email, and fragments of songs, poems, essays, interviews, short stories, and biographies.
Like all brilliant works, this novel contains a few minor mistakes (besides the wrong spelling of Juan Luna’s 1884 masterpiece, the Spoliarium, which Syjuco acknowledged during a book launch organized by the National Book Development Board last April 14).

In one section, the protagonist appropriately or provocatively named Miguel Syjuco switches on the cable tv and does channel surfing like the way the novel shifts from one literary form to another. After changing channels 14 times, “a Portuguese nun discusses the beatitudes, quoting from the Gospel of St. John. Blessed are the meek, she says.” He changes channel 6 more times.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” can be found in the Gospel of Matthew (5:5) and in no other Gospel. For many of his believers and non-believers, the beatitudes of Jesus are absurd or unrealistic teachings, as these seem to glorify weakness, poverty, and misfortune. Like what the apostle Paul would say about the Crucified Christ, the beatitudes represent, for many, either a scandal or folly in practice.
Among the evils that another protagonist, Syjuco’s mentor Crispin Salvador, wants to expose is “the sin of omission” of members of the elite who, in their despair over the persistent eruptive state of the nation, “shuttered their homes, huddled inside, read scripture, and waited” for God to act. Similarly in Philippine fiction writing, there is “an underlying cultural faith in deus ex machina: God coming from the sky to make things right or more wrong.”
We should curse the meekness that means mere submissiveness or passivity, denies persons their right to protest injustice, and stems really from cowardice.
Another kind of meekness, however, is noble. It stems from wisdom and courage such as what Jesus of Nazareth showed, for though he went around in Galilee speaking powerful and wise words to both the lowly and the mighty, he was known to be “meek and humble in heart” even as he publicly denounced the hypocrisy of persons in authority who did not practice what they preached (Matthew 11:29; 23:3).
If Jesus' meekness was weakness and submissiveness, the authorities would not have bothered to have him arrested and killed in a shameful manner.
Every educated or intelligent citizen who wants to see radical change in society will come closer to pure enlightenment and inner peace when he examines himself humbly, honestly and regularly, and does this at least as often as he corrects others for their unethical behavior. “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).

"Forgiving Was Natural to Ninoy"

2010-05-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

A few months after the assassination of her husband in 1983, Corazon Aquino described in an interview the magnanimity of Ninoy towards his opponents. The interview is chapter 18 of the book "A Hero Worth Living For" (ISBN 978-971-91523-9-2), written and published by veteran journalist and teacher, Alice Colet Villadolid, in 2007. Below is an excerpt:
"'What do you most treasure about Ninoy?' I asked. Cory brightened up, her eyes twinkling, and she answered, 'He was a kind & forgiving man. He had warm & friendly feelings for almost everyone.'
"She backtracked about 30 years & remembered when she & Ninoy were newly married. 'He ran for mayor & defeated Nicolas Feliciano who had been mayor of Concepcion for many years. Ninoy knew what it was to lose in that manner & he wanted to be magnanimous. He went out of his way to be friendly to Feliciano,' she narrated.
"'Again when Ninoy ran for the office of vice-governor of Tarlac,' Cory continued, 'the candidate of the other party, Jose 'Apeng' Yap, became very angry because Ninoy carried the entire ticket of his party to victory. Later, Ninoy befriended 'Apeng' & they became the closest of friends....'
"'Some of our friends could not understand how Ninoy could go & talk to Imelda Marcos early in May 1983, when she was in New York. For one thing, Ninoy & I recognized that it was Imelda who arranged Ninoy's trip to the U.S. for treatment when he became ill in 1980. Ninoy felt it was common courtesy to tell Imelda that he wanted to return to the country. In all truthfulness, others more bitterly resented the Marcoses than Ninoy did....'
"Cory said, 'Some people could not understand why he bent over backwards towards his political enemies. But forgiving was natural to Ninoy. He lost his temper quickly. But once he let off steam, he would forget.'"

Raised in Naked Glory

2010-03-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

In the gospel of John, the “hour” of Christ’s glory is the completion of his mission at his crucifixion, when he is stripped naked and lifted up on the cross. At his death and glorification, Jesus offers to believers his Spirit, and from his wounded side flows the living water and blood of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist through which believers are born anew and receive eternal life.

Paul reminds us: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too may walk in newness of life.” (Rom 6:3-4)

During the Easter vigil in some churches throughout the world, new members will be baptized, and thus the time-honored tradition of linking Easter with baptism will go on. This linkage is beautifully described in the ancient rite of baptism by immersion.

In the early churches, candidates for baptism or catechumens shed their clothes and go down naked into a pool of water. Their nakedness and their immersion symbolize their death. The catechumens strip themselves of a former way of life. For many of them, their baptism was their death in the eyes of their pagan relatives and friends who refused to associate with them once they became Christians.

The catechumens descend into the waters, the waters that can cleanse, nourish, or kill. By their symbolic death, they experience the death of Christ. When they rise naked from the waters, they put on their baptismal robes, and then join the expectant community, which joyfully welcomes them as new partakers in the life of the Risen Lord.

In the gospel of Mark (16:1-8), when the women entered Jesus' tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The presence of this young man in a long garment becomes more significant if we recall the story of the arrest of Jesus in Mark 14:51-52.After Jesus was led away by armed men, Mark mentions the strange emergence of a young man wearing nothing but a linen garment. He tried to follow Jesus, but when the armed men seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

This flight in nakedness is a graphic display of the weakness and vulnerability of the disciples, who all fled and deserted Jesus. One is reminded of these lines of a poem of Jean De La Ceppede (1548-1623):

Often I have tried to follow you, my life
Along familiar paths your mercy shows
But always, but always your several foes
Have seized me by the sheet, my strength borne off.

Jesus was disgraced, mocked and forcibly stripped. In the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus was all alone to face death, bare of clothes and bare of friends. This declaration of the upright Job applies fully to Jesus: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart” (Job 1:21).

At the tomb of Jesus, the women find a young man. It seems that the young man who earlier fled in nakedness has now returned dressed in a long garment. He proclaims that Jesus has risen, and he instructs the women to tell Peter and the disciples. But the women flee in fear and say nothing to anyone (Mk 16:8). It was a shock to be told of the Vindication of Jesus (see 11 April 2009 blog entry) who is now clothed in holy power and glory.

Christ rose naked, as he left the strips of linen and his burial cloth in the empty tomb. He rose not in the nakedness of his former mortal body but in the naked glory of his risen body. As Adam of St. Victor (d. 1192) says in his hymn “Ecce Dies Celebris” (Behold, the Glorious Day!): “Christ’s flesh, once like sackcloth torn, is now a royal robe victoriously worn.”

The women and the other disciples, however, were afraid because they abandoned their master and friend when he needed them most. They disgraced themselves and revealed their naked weakness. They were ashamed of their infidelity and cowardice, and they were afraid to face the new power of Christ. Like Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit, they wanted to hide from the divine presence.

The original nakedness of Adam and Eve involved no shame, but this innocence was lost because of lust, not lust for sex, the standing serpent, but lust for power. They wanted to be like God, being able to do everything. In contrast, the shamefully condemned and crucified Christ was raised in naked glory because, despite the adulation of crowds at his powerful deeds and words when he went around in Galilee, he emptied himself of selfish ambition and became a complete servant of God and God’s people even in the face of death on the cross.

With their abandonment of their master and friend, the disciples wrestled with their shameful nakedness, and they were only able to withstand it once they stopped blaming one another and started forgiving. Then they began to see the merciful gaze of Christ, and once they saw this forgiving look, they began to realize that Jesus was not imprisoned in the past. Christ is present, Christ is future, Christ welcomes us back. Their shameful nakedness is now covered in love, and new life is born.

Shameful nakedness does not imply that the human body is a contemptible object. The body is precious, for it offers our primary opening to others and to the world. It is through the body that we are able to develop or destroy deep relationships. Our gaze can animate or kill. Our tongues can wound or heal. Our touch can assure or deceive. Christ’s resurrection testifies to the value of our bodies, for Christ rose in a body. In the Apostle’s Creed, we proclaim our belief in the resurrection of the body.

The body is the bedrock of deep relationships, and thus, we believe that God will resurrect the body because God wants to immortalize deep relationships. In contrast to commercial advertising, the primal beauty of the body does not rest on its shape, its size, or its youth, but on its ability to produce or nourish deep relationships.

The priority of deep relationships is something that many contemporary people are neglecting especially among the middle and upper classes. They do not primarily seek and sustain expressive relationships but prioritize the accumulation of money, or prioritize workaholism in order to acquire more, consume more, and waste more. Consumerism and productivism have trivialized emotive and ethical matters such as intimate friendship, sexual relations, and the respect for wildlife. The body, friendship, sex, and wildlife are being turned into commodities.

God resurrects the body because God wants to immortalize deep relationships. Christ has been raised from the dead because he has the deepest relationship with God and others. The depth of his relationships enabled him to withstand the shameful nakedness of being cruelly stripped, mocked, and punished, while his disciples abandoned him. In clinging firmly to his deep relationships, the shameful nakedness of Jesus was converted into a lovingly shared nakedness, a powerlessness and vulnerability in solidarity with the poor, the defenseless, the excluded, human wrecks, and the refuse of the world.

When Christ resurrected covered in holy power and new life, he did not hesitate to offer the protective cloak of forgiveness to his anxious disciples. We can prepare ourselves for our Lord's warm cloak of compassion by humbly standing before him in prayer as the naked selves we truly are. Then we can pray in these words of the 12th century theologian and mystic, William of St. Thierry:

"Having cast off the garment of skins that you made for Adam to protect him from his shame and confusion, I show myself to you, naked, as you created me. Behold me, Lord, not as you have made me but as I have made myself, because I have fallen away from you."

In our commemoration of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, let us also reflect on our nakedness, our personal vulnerabilities, limitations, and deficiencies. With the help of Christ’s Spirit, let us reflect on how we can turn our nakedness into an opening so that the nakedness of others can find sacred rest and relief in the presence of our own nakedness. Or do we prefer to exhibit the shameful nakedness of our egocentrism, anxiety or indifference?

How do we strip ourselves of our greed and selfishness so that we can practice this injunction of St. Jerome: "naked follow the naked Christ"? How do we strip ourselves especially in prayer and contemplation so that, in the words of the 14th century spiritual text, "The Cloud of Unknowing, your intent is nakedly directed to God"? How can we share this nakedness so that others will experience forgiveness, hope, justice, and the dignity of the sons and daughters of God?

Let us pray for one another and for the whole naked humanity, as we remember Christ’s naked death and the naked glory of his resurrection. May we receive the power of his new life so that we can accompany one another in our naked immersion in the river of life from which we hope everybody will rise with naked intent unto God and put on the supreme baptismal robes of final innocence and divine life.

What One Congressman Can Do

2010-03-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

On his second term, Iloilo City Congressman Raul T. Gonzalez Jr. has accomplished the principal authorship of six (6) national laws: Republic Act 9521 (National Book Development Trust Fund Act), R.A. 9646 (Real Estate Service Act), R.A. 9513 (Renewable Energy Resources Act), R.A. 9853 (Customs Brokers Act), R.A. 10024 (Philippine Respiratory Therapy Act) and the soon-to-be-signed Psychology Service Act. Many members of Congress finish 3 terms (or 9 years) without authoring a single law of national importance.

Raul Gonzalez Jr. chaired two House committees: the Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation and the Committee on Revision of Laws. Politicians often cite “reforming our government” as their primary reason for entering politics, and thus Raul Jr. chose the Civil Service Committee, which can produce laws that will improve the state of our 1.5 million government employees and the private professionals (doctors, engineers, nurses, psychologists, real estate agents, customs brokers, respiratory therapists, etc.).

When Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia was elevated to the post of Deputy Speaker, Raul Jr. was appointed Acting Chair (for about 6 months) of the committee Garcia vacated, the Committee on Revision of Laws. Thus, he ended up presiding over two committees - a rare distinction because traditionally a senior congressman is given only one committee to chair.

Many constituents expect their Congressman to obtain development projects for their district. Raul Jr. over a three-year period (2007-2010) was able to channel approximately P275 Million worth of projects to Iloilo City, broken down as follows: P52 Million under the “Free Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients” program, P41.8 Million to the Iloilo City government under his “Assistance to LGU” program, P33 Million for the construction/repair of barangay multi-purpose halls, another P30 Million for the construction/declogging of drainage systems, and P73 million for the repair/concreting of various roads and bridges in Iloilo City.

Tens of thousands of indigent Iloilo City residents have benefited from the Free Medical Assistance program since it was started almost 15 years ago by Deputy Speaker Raul M. Gonzalez, Sr. Through the years, an estimated total of P200 Million has been disbursed under the said program. As for the “Assistance to LGU” fund under Raul Jr., it has been used mainly to buy things that the Iloilo City Government was unable to provide: barangay patrol vehicles, police cars, and communications equipment.

The Assistance fund has also been used to augment various initiatives of the City Government such as the Dinagyang Foundation, Paraw Regatta, and even the schooling of the Vice Mayor, 2 City Councilors, and 16 department heads and city hall personnel at the Ateneo School of Government Masters in Public Management program. The rest of the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Raul Jr. was used to repair public structures (roads, bridges, barangay halls) which were damaged by Typhoon Frank in 2008.

Emy Boncodin (1955-2010)

2010-03-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

I join believers in dedicated public service in mourning the death of Emilia 'Emy' Boncodin, an outstanding public servant and a brilliant teacher. Despite her busy schedule, Boncodin managed to teach courses on public finance and strategic management of the bureaucracy in the Ateneo School of Government Masters in Public Management (MPM) program in which she awed her students. She was a model of ethical and competent leadership that she effectively exercised in her humble and low-profile way. She will be sorely missed, but she will continue to live in the memory of her many admirers and in the lives of those who will follow her example.

Enterprises for & with the Poor & the Lowly

2010-03-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Get to know Filipino social enterprises like CARD-MRI, Hapinoy, Gawad Kalinga, and Rags2Riches, which has succeeded in enterprising for and with the poor, who constitute the base of the social pyramid in developing countries. Rags2Riches is an internationally recognized social enterprise that has empowered poor mothers living around the Payatas dumpsite to transform scraps of dirty cloth into fashionable bags and accessories and thus raise each homemaker’s weekly earnings from P200 to P2,500.

You can read about Filipino social enterprises in the recently launched (2009) book, “For the People with the People: Developing Social Enterprises in the Philippines,” edited by Regina Hechanova-Alampay and published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. To buy a copy, email unipress@admu.edu.ph

In light of the cases discussed in the book, Hechanova-Alampay and Leland dela Cruz define a social enterprise as “a new sustainable endeavor (whether in the form of a new model, a new organization, or a new program within an organization) created through the investment of assets and the assumption of risk-taking activities to address social problems” like inter-generational poverty and inadequate access to credit, education and housing (118).

Reese Fernandez, the intelligent, friendly and young External Vice President of Rags2Riches, describes the challenge of entering and understanding the world of the Payatas mothers and the continuing challenge to fuse it with the world of the competitive market:

“There’s a community that has lots of needs that you want to fulfill but at the same time there is the market, the demand side that you have to take care of also. You have to balance the two and it’s always more tricky if you’re working with a community that you want to empower rather than just a pool of laborers. We want them to be our partners, so we always have to include them in our decision-making. It’s really difficult to make them understand long-term matters, make them understand the things you understand.” (78).

Our country needs more people like Reese and her partners in Rags2Riches who have succeeded in fusing horizons or worlds that are easily alienated from each other.

Leadership Our Nation Needs

2010-02-15T02:21:00.000-08:00

What kind of leadership in governance does our nation need? We need transformational leadership that wisely can exercise transactional leadership to ensure the delivery of basic services to many poor communities and locales.

James MacGregor Burns, in his book, Leadership (1978), differentiates the two as follows:

Transformational leadership “occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leader(s) and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”

Transactional leadership “occurs when one person takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued things.” An example of the exercise of transactional leadership is the pledge and effort of elective officials to deliver rice, roads, bridges, water and electricity to their constituents in exchange for their votes. Transactional leadership can be ethical or unethical. An elective official who wins primarily through the offer of money to voters exercises transactional leadership of the unethical kind.

As for transformational leadership, the statesman Raul Manglapus (1918-1999) was describing it when he said: “The responsibility of leadership...is to give meaning to the life of every citizen” (“Creating for Greatness,” 1962).

To illustrate the importance of meaning in the citizen’s life, his speech at the 1962 commencement exercises of the Manuel L. Quezon University recounted this story of 3 men at work:

“What meaning?

“In the Middle Ages, one of the great Gothic cathedrals was being built in France. The work was just beginning and there were many laborers at work, all of them cutting stones. A priest, wishing to discover the attitude of each worker toward his work, approached one of them and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

“And the man, looking up from his work and shrugging his shoulders, replied, ‘Can’t you see? I am cutting stones.’

“Not satisfied with that answer, the priest went to the next man and asked, ‘You, my good man, what are you doing?’

“The (2^nd) man said, ‘Well, I have a wife and children. I have to earn a living. So I am cutting stones.’

“Still not satisfied, the priest went on to a third man and again asked, ‘And you, my good man, what are you doing?’

“This man looked up at the priest with pride in his eyes and replied, ‘Father, I am building a cathedral!’

“Three men at work at the same job, but what a world of difference between their outlooks.”

The responsibility of political leadership that is transformational is to raise the outlooks of citizens so that the old will dream dreams and the young will see visions...of a nation of justice, peace, and equal opportunity. Thus, the transformational leader is an inspiring model to the citizenry.

When do we know that transformational leadership has been exercised and borne fruit in our country?

“When we shall be able to approach the worker in the factory, the farmer in the ricefield, the lawyer, the doctor, the teacher, the engineer, the economist [the manager and the entrepreneur] and they shall all say, ‘I am earning a living, yes, but I am also building a nation’” (R. Manglapus).

For 2010 and beyond, our nation needs leadership that is transformational and transactional, just as in evangelizing or transforming politics, Christian leaders need to be “as shrewd as snakes & as innocent as doves” (Mt 10:16). “The children of light” have to be wiser than “the children of this world” (Lk 16:8) in making use of political power.

When necessary, the transformational leader will have to exercise transactional leadership in order to ensure that poor locales and communities lift themselves from poverty. For example, a transformational president should know how to engage wisely in transactions and reach a principled compromise with key legislators, whether opponents or allies, in order to secure both the timely passage of priority legislation such as the General Appropriations Act and the confirmation of key executive appointments.

The transformational leader in politics has to practice wisdom, which is a virtue that disposes one to discern what is both noble & realistic among goals & courses of action in particular circumstances. Wisdom in leadership is a dynamic balance between romanticism (wishful thinking) & mediocrity (dull thinking). A romantic or utopian leader can do as much damage as a mediocre leader.

Today’s wise leaders are “systems thinkers” & watch out for systemic flaws. In his book, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” (2007), Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo speaks of “the banality of evil and the banality of heroism: any of us could as easily become heroes as perpetrators of evil, depending on how we are impacted by situational & systemic forces.” In our country, the poor campaign finance system in which the generation of campaign funds lacks efficiency and transparency is one of the systemic flaws that push our elective officials towards unethical behavior.

The excellent leader practices systems thinking, the understanding & the learning of complexity, interdependencies (of action & structure), & change (e.g. in technology & knowledge).

To become a transformational president, one ought to have “fire in the belly” which, although rooted in some personal unhappiness or deep restlessness, can be positive if it comprises:
(a) healthy impatience with the national condition,
(b) the drive for excellence &
(c) readiness & willingness to authorize or command calibrated coercion or violence when it is necessary to enforce the law for the common good.

“If you have gone a whole week without being impatient, you are not serving yourself or your (organization) well” (Tom Peter). Among the qualities of which “the President should set the example” is “the virtue of healthy impatience” (Credo of Pres. Ramon Magsaysay).

Manglapus raised the question: “how does one lead (our) free nation to greatness?” His answer: “Awaken citizens out of mere existence, so that, with spontaneity, they may push forward where they had to be dragged [by government], help themselves where they had to be spoonfed, create where they only thought to consume, strive for excellence where they were content with mediocrity” (R. Manglapus, “Road to Greatness,” 1962).

Our nation needs transformational leadership that knows how to exercise transactional leadership whenever necessary. The transformational leaders for our times are systems thinkers & models of ethical values such as integrity, wisdom, justice & the pursuit of excellence.

Finally, we should keep in mind that we can exercise leadership, and should exercise it wisely, in our locales, communities and organizations even when we do not occupy positions of authority.

Fire in the Belly To Be President

2010-02-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

In the humor-laden and award-winning autobiography, From Barrio to Senado (2008 National Book Awards), by public health leader and two-term Senator (1995-2007) Dr. Juan M. Flavier (b. 1935), one reads:

“Fire in the belly is the first pre-requisite for anyone aspiring for the highest political office in our country. I believe you must absolutely want to be president. You must absolutely have the drive to seize the position.

“Without that fire, without that ambition, the position will be ill-served even by the most noble of intentions.

“Raul Roco had fire in his belly. As does Ping [Lacson]. And Loren Legarda. There are a few more young leaders that, I am happy to say, have that drive, ambition, and clear vision to get to Malacañang.” (Flavier, 394-95)

Senator Flavier realized he did not have fire in the belly even after the following favorable events:

Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced on Rizal Day of 2002 that she would not be a presidential candidate in the next election; conscientious persons like Winnie Monsod assured him of support if he wanted to run; Pres. Arroyo explicitly encouraged Flavier, Bobby Barbers, and Jun Magsaysay to “float” their names as presidential aspirants; three “Flavier for President” movements were launched in “Davao, Central Luzon, and Baguio, courtesy of the initiatives of Atty. Raul Lambino” after his name was floated; stickers like “Juan for All and All for Juan” started to appear in Metro-Manila without instruction from Flavier; Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco of RCBC invited him to a meeting to discuss the matter of campaign funds; surveys started to show he was second to Raul Roco and higher than Ping Lacson.

Despite all these favorable events, Flavier did not start organizing, and his media appearances had “no planning, no budget, no strategy, and no real effort.” He narrates:

“Gene Orejana was the first to interview me live on television…He asked me if I was physically up for the rigors of a national campaign. I responded that I was game, but admitted that health would be a consideration. I told him I had asthma, high blood pressure, and mild diabetes.

“Rudy [chief of staff, Senate office] almost had a heart attack, and the next day he had a welt on his forehead where he had slapped himself.

“When Korina Sanchez guested me on her own television program, Isyu, she gave me a second chance to be more politic in my answer. But afterwards, in a text message to her fellow broadcaster…she, too, expressed perplexity in my being ‘deliberately honest’ about my health. She sensed that my heart was ‘not into this float.’” (Flavier, 390)

Why was there no fire in his belly? Deep down the “barrio doctor” in him remained stronger than the politician. The barrio doctor listens, persuades, and heals individuals and communities. The politician can do the same but he or she should be ready and willing to authorize or command coercion or violence whenever it is necessary to enforce the law for the common good.

Flavier’s book intimates that one has to have some deep unhappiness or restlessness to relish the fierce competition for the highest office of Chief Executive and Commander of necessary violence.

When he looks back at a childhood in which his parents, both grade-school dropouts, struggled to put food on the table for a family of eight, Juan Flavier has enough inner peace and happiness, as he perceives that his descendants have more opportunities: “Knowing that all my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have a better life than I did is all I need to know to be at peace with the God that Susan and I try to introduce to them” (Flavier, 402).

Juan Flavier, the public health leader, loved to communicate with the poor, shared with them his jokes and humorous parables, and knew himself enough to recognize that he had no fire in his belly for the Presidency.

Source: Flavier, Juan. From Barrio to Senado: An Autobiography. n.p. 2008.

Doy Laurel's Ordeal

2010-01-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most painful ordeal in Salvador H. Laurel's political life arose from the broken promises of Corazon C. Aquino very early in her presidency. When on 11 December 1985 she agreed to run under the banner of the UNIDO party, which Laurel organized and led, she promised him that he would be the Prime Minister (under the 1973 Constitution) and that he would be closely consulted for most of the Cabinet appointments. Instead, from the first few months of her presidency, a Palace "cordon sanitaire" gradually and systematically denied him access to her. She also refused to be identified with the UNIDO right after assuming the presidency.
Here is an excerpt from the 13 August 1988 Open Letter that Vice-President Doy sent to President Cory and which concluded with his announcement that he was completely disassociating himself from her administration:
"Despite my limited access to you, I tried to focus your attention on the need for a well-defined program of government. Such a program was made available to you by UNIDO from the very start when it made you its presidential candidate. But in total disregard of all political norms, you completely ignored the party platform, refused to acknowledge your obligations to the party that sponsored your bid for power, and tolerated all open or underhanded assaults against it.
"If I have held my peace until now in spite of your decision to ignore me altogether and to listen instead only to the counsel of those whose political, economic and social interests are more congruent with your own, it is because my sense of responsibility for the new government goes much farther back in time. It was I who, although already nominated for President by the UNIDO National Convention in June 1985, offered you, not a million signatures on a petition, but a solid pre-existing political party with nationwide roots and structures that would assure you of victory and a chance to fulfill the hopes and dreams of our suffering people.
"While I accept my share of moral responsibility for having helped place your administration in power, that responsibility must be proportionate to the actual opportunity given to participate in the decision-making process. That opportunity was close to zero."

Salvador 'Doy' Laurel: Missed Statesman

2010-01-27T20:32:00.001-08:00

Today is the 6th death anniversary of a Filipino patriot and statesman, Salvador 'Doy' Laurel (1928-2004), who served his country as National Centennial Commission Chairman (1994-1998), Vice-President of the Republic (1986-1992), Assemblyman (1978-1983) and Senator (1967-1972). Doy & Ninoy Aquino were best friends from childhood and entered Congress together.
In a testimony written by Lupita Kashiwahara, Ninoy's sister, one reads:
"Doy and Ninoy served together in the Philippine Senate. Those were the glory years of intelligent, articulate discourse. Can you imagine being in the Senate gallery, listening to those two giants of Philippine politics debating the critical issues of the time? The Senate has not been the same since.
"During martial law, Doy established UNIDO [United Nationalist Democratic Organization], the leading opposition party to [Ferdinand] Marcos. And when Ninoy decided to end his self-imposed exile and return home, Doy took charge of his homecoming.
"In a quiet moment during the turmoil that followed Ninoy's murder, Doy, I was told, cried. Doy the bon vivant, the life of a party, the fierce Batangueno, was a caring and sensitive human being. He felt our pain and his own. We had lost a loved one and so had he."
In the testimony of a loyal friend, Raul M. Gonzalez, Doy "fought valiantly together with other freedom-loving Filipinos during the darkest hours of our democracy, earning the ire of the then martial law regime."
These testimonies and those of many others can be read in the beautiful coffee table book, "Doy Laurel," put together by his talented & devoted widow Celia Diaz-Laurel and published in 2005. His life, ideas, and writings can also be read in the newly launched website: www.doylaurel.com
One my fondest memories of Ninong Doy, who was a main sponsor at my wedding, was the dinner he & Tita Celia hosted for me and my fiancee, Deeda, and our parents, Raul and Pacita Gonzalez and Oscar and Alice Villadolid in December 2002. Ninong Doy & Tita Celia were perfect hosts, and he personally prepared and served us his delicious specialty, Sukiyaki.
May the spirit of Doy Laurel cheer us & sustain us to "help those who cannot help themselves" and to love country above oneself.

Missing Element in CBCP Call for Political Involvement

2010-01-25T01:10:00.000-08:00

The call of Philippine Catholic bishops for the active involvement of the laity in "principled partisan politics" (24 January 2010 CBCP Pastoral Statement) targets individual candidates and voters but neglects necessary institutions like political parties. More than our flawed elective officials, the bigger national challenge is our weak governance institutions. Enduring and pervasive unethical practices in politics are rooted in flawed systems and institutions, which can outlast individuals & cannot be changed without sufficient competence, imagination, strategic moves & sustained efforts.

The CBCP asks the candidates to educate the people on the situation of our country and “to present their platforms and convictions rather than attack others.” The bishops appeal to voters to exercise wisely their right to vote, and to “follow the dictates of conscience after a prayerful and collective period of discernment” rather than be swayed by “survey results or political advertisements.”
The CBCP encouragement for lay people to participate actively in principled partisan politics should target the strengthening of institutions like the political parties, which are weak in the following: clarifying and promoting their ideologies and platforms, mobilizing resources for political education and electoral campaigns, and disciplining their party members (see “Priorities for Parties,” 15 August 2009 blog). Political parties that are financially stable, ideologically strong, platform-based, and dialogical in practice will be more effective in the political education of the citizenry than the institutional church will be.

In this light, here are some crucial pastoral actions for the institutional church:

(1) Encourage voters, and urge the political parties, to support a Party Development Law that would create a State Subsidy Fund for party strengthening and campaign financing, require an established participatory process for selecting party candidates, and punish party-switching.

(2) Encourage voters to review the platforms, programs & accomplishments of current parties, and to join a party & actively contribute to its capability in formulating & implementing its programs & disciplining its members.

(3) Specify & disseminate criteria to guide voters and neophyte candidates in assessing & choosing to join a political party, e.g. the coherence, the explanatory ability & the explicit & implicit anthropological assumptions of the party ideology & platform.

A radical theologian once suggested that faith without ideology is dead. If ideology is understood as a politico-economic theory on how a society may resolve or balance the competing interests of its members, then the practice of one’s religious faith without ideology tends either to neglect social reform or to pursue reform in incoherent or unsystematic ways. The evangelization of Philippine politics is ineffective when it ignores the institutional weakness of political parties, which are ideologically & financially weak.

Popular Culture and Elections

2009-12-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

An election is not only regarded as a legitimate way to choose a political leader in the Philippines but also enjoyed as a spectator sport or a game of chance. The popularity of the game of chance as an activity and symbol is linked to the folk belief that life itself is an adventure or a risky undertaking: Ang buhay ay isang pakikipagsapalaran. Thus, for many of those who want to become overseas Filipino workers, the desire for adventure comes as a close second to the desire for economic improvement. They might have grown tired, too, of the age-old adventure of life on these islands with its generous share of sunshine, rain, typhoons, volcanoes, earthquake faults, floods, flawed laws, and flawed officials. There are few places on earth where all these can happen in a year: the sun dries the rice, lava snaps trees, ash falls and pours, storms level homes, waves and floods drown, and laws catch only small fish and flies but no crocodiles.

Popular culture has to be taken into account by those who want to become elective public servants in a democracy. Popular culture comprises traditions, expressions, and sentiments “common to the general public that in the Philippines is the Filipino masa” (Felice P. Sta. Maria). Multi-awarded journalist Sheila Coronel wrote in a 2004 PCIJ study on lawmakers: “Those who rule must be able to clothe their power with the cloak of legitimacy by tapping into popular belief or ideology. The most successful political families have been able to do this” (The Rulemakers, 84).

An example is the Payumo family, which has ruled the town of Dinalupihan, Bataan, after the ouster of the Marcoses in 1986. Its most prominent member is Felicito ‘Tong’ Payumo, an engineer-industrialist who became a three-term member of the House of Representatives from the Eighth to the Tenth Congress, before he became chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority for six years. Like many successful politicians, he has used expressions that resonate with the masses.

For instance, in a miting de avance in San Isidro village, Dinalupihan, during the 1992 electoral campaign, Payumo asked the crowd to vote for his team of candidates para tuloy-tuloy ang daloy ng biyaya mula sa itaas hanggang sa baba (so that grace will flow freely from high above to down below). “Biyaya” is a Tagalog term used in both official and popular religion to refer to grace as a gift or help from God, who is usually pictured as dwelling in the heavens above. It is also widely believed that the gift or help reaches the recipient through a mediator like a patron saint. Payumo also referred to Lucy, his sister-in-law, then the mayor running for re-election, as a mother not only to her children, but to her constituents as well.

In January 2007, boxing legend Manny Pacquiao announced over national television that he would run for Congressman of the 1^st District of South Cotabato, which includes his hometown of General Santos City, “upang maging tulay” (to serve as a bridge) to link the poor of his district with the national government in Metro-Manila. He lost to the 2^nd-term incumbent, Darlene Antonino Custodio, a member of the Antonino political dynasty of South Cotabato and whose father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother had been members of Congress.

In general, the cultural tendency of the masses to seek mediators, patrons, and parent-like authority figures is understood better by traditional politicians and members of political dynasties than by reform-minded citizens out to challenge them. Similarly, according to Joel Rocamora, “those who exploit the peasantry are more adept at the rituals and the languages of peasant communities than those who would defend them.”

A sufficient grasp of popular culture, which is part of the intangible heritage passed on within a political dynasty, helps ensure electoral victory, besides the considerable resources of the dynasty to maintain a patronage system. As they are raised and socialized, the offspring of political clans become familiar with the language and practices of the prevalent political culture, and they “get used to a retinue of followers and to entertaining ward leaders and favor seekers” (Rulemakers, 59).

In some locales, dynasties allocate resources for bribing election personnel and hiring goons to intimidate voters and inflict violence on opponents. Perhaps unlike the phenomenon of warlords or brutish bosses among some governors and mayors, the PCIJ study on legislators says: “the so-called warlords in Congress, politicians who keep armed goons and terrorize their constituents, have largely died out” (Rulemakers, 48).

For example, the descendants of Ramon Durano Sr. of Danao City in Cebu, and Ali Dimaporo of the Lanao provinces, specifically Tourism Secretary ‘Ace’ Durano and Lanao del Norte Representative Abdullah Dimaporo, have cosmopolitan manners and high educational credentials and have gone beyond the crude coercive ways of their fathers. “In part, this is because they did not have to muscle their way to power as their fathers and grandfathers did. The descendants inherited the political base and the electoral machine put in place by their fathers.” (Rulemakers, 48)

While congressional warlords are mostly gone, the reality of political dynasties is not on the verge of dying out, as this description from the same PCIJ study shows:

“In the Eighth Congress, the first post-Marcos legislature, 61 percent or 122 of 198 representatives were from political clans….In the 12^th Congress, which was elected in 2001, 61 percent or 140 of 228 representatives came from political clans. In the 11^th House, it was 62 percent. If the percentages are computed without the party-list representatives, however, the numbers increase to 65 percent for the 11^th House and 66 percent for the 12^th.” (Rulemakers, 47)

In my review of the 216 single-district representatives of the House in the 14^th Congress, a sizeable 69 percent, or 150 representatives, are from political clans.

Dynasties can spend so much to keep themselves in power. Says PCIJ: “A congressional campaign in 2004, according to campaign insiders, can cost up to P30 million in Metro Manila. In rural areas, the price tag is much less: P10 million on average, although campaigns can be run for P3 million or less in smaller districts where the competition is not too intense.” (Rulemakers, 86) In this light, reform-oriented citizens who are not members of political clans find the pursuit of an elective office difficult, distasteful, and demoralizing; thus, many of them become cynical about Philippine elections, politics, and democracy, and surrender electoral politics to traditional politicians by default.

State and Family in the Philippines

2009-12-17T01:33:00.000-08:00

To Alfred McCoy, a historian and observer of Philippine politics, our republic is a “weak post-colonial state” where “the interaction between powerful rent-seeking families and a correspondingly weak Philippine state has been synergistic” (An Anarchy of Families, 19). This essentially means that these families and their rivalries have been both cause and effect of our weak State.

Over the years, beginning with the 1907 Philippine Assembly elections under the tutelage of the United States, members of provincial families who have risen to national offices have used their positions to obtain “rents” or economic values through government regulations, permits, or low-interest loans that give their families an artificial advantage, special access, or even a monopoly over the markets of goods like sugar and copra, and services like banking and broadcasting.

The Lopezes of Iloilo, for example, have shown how business and politics can mix and feed off each other. In the period between World War II and the Marcos dictatorship, Eugenio Lopez Sr (1901-1975) became a successful entrepreneur who controlled several large corporations including the Manila Electric Company and ABS-CBN, among the nation’s top broadcasting networks. His brother Fernando (1904-1993) became mayor of Iloilo City, a senator, and then vice-president for three terms.

“Fernando’s political success afforded Eugenio access to government contracts for his business concerns. Indeed, this symbiosis of political influence and corporate growth was a key factor in Eugenio’s spectacular rise from provincial bus operator to the Philippines’ most powerful entrepreneur in only a quarter of a century.” (Anarchy of Families, 447)

This practice of rent-seeking that has persisted to this day has decreased public resources, degraded the political impartiality of the civil service, and diminished accountability, competence, and efficiency among public officials and employees. Whether rich or poor, families in the Philippines are clannish and tend to give greater premium to family loyalty than patriotism. As a result, “we imagine ourselves foremost as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers of our families instead of as citizens of a nation” (Arnold Alamon).

Compared to family and friends, government, especially at the national level, is remote and distant to many of the rural and urban poor. Even when national officials happen to be honest and efficient, kith and kin are nearer, dearer, and more reliable when it comes to fulfilling one’s needs and wants. The kinship network is relied upon for employment, money, medical help, education, and socialization, among others, especially in hard times.

More importantly, according to McCoy, the family strives to pass on to the next generation its “name, honor, lands, capital, and values.” The kinship network even expands to include acquaintances, peers, and superiors with whom one can be bound through rituals of initiation like baptism with its potentially numerous sponsors, kumpares and kumares.

Democracy and the Catholic Church in the Philippines

2009-12-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

A major cause of the weak sense of nationhood among many Filipinos is the historical connection between the Roman Catholic Church, the country’s dominant religious institution, and the colonial powers. To both the political and religious rulers of Spain, it was important that the Philippine Islands, named after the absolute monarch Philip II (1556-1598), be colonized and evangelized at the same time. The Spanish missionaries and friars blessed and legitimized the colonial enterprise. In turn, the colonial Church gained from the Spanish crown martial protection, support for its missionary efforts, resources for constructing churches, control over colonial education, and large estates from which much wealth was derived.

Spanish Catholicism was accepted by the natives partly because it reaffirmed their belief in the necessity of intermediaries in bridging the distance to the supreme deity. The primary structure of intermediation was maintained even though functional substitutions occurred: the saints and angels replaced the ancestral spirits or anitos, while the Catholic priest replaced the native shaman or babaylan. Thus, from the colonial period down to our times, most priests, ordinary devotees, and their popular devotions highlight the powers of the mother of Jesus and the saints as patrons, intercessors, or intermediaries more than their virtues of courage, wisdom, justice, and integrity.

Bishops tend to give great importance to intermediary power and undemocratic hierarchical authority partly because of their inherent duty to be guardians of the Roman Catholic tradition. Conservative pastors predominate in an institution that asserts the apostolic authority of the bishops and the primacy of the Pope. Yet there have been turning points and conjunctions in the history of the Church when, even for brief periods, the Church became both conservative and radical. Locally, one such turning point was the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) in 1991.

With the participation of selected priests, religious, and lay leaders, the bishops at PCP II asserted that, for genuine and lasting social transformation, “people empowerment” is necessary—implying “greater involvement in decision-making, greater equality in both political and economic matters, more democracy, and more participation” (PCP II Conciliar Document nos. 325-326). Nearly two decades after PCP II, however, it remains unclear to what extent the hierarchical Church is a genuine democratizing force in society.

Today, the hierarchy remains undemocratic in that its members—the clergy—are selected in a process with little participation from the laity, who form the great majority in the Church. Also, the clergy tend to be secretive about the assets and liabilities of dioceses, religious institutes, their schools, and their hospitals. Likewise, some Church organizations do not practice what is preached about the dignity of human work and the rights of workers to just remuneration and to “participative management” in which workers are involved in decision-making.

While the Church decrees that “bishops, priests, and religious must refrain from partisan politics” (PCP Decrees Art. 28 #2), and teaches that the laity, and not the clergy, ought to be at the forefront of the task to renew the political community in accordance with gospel values, some high-profile clerics and religious exempt themselves from these precepts. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin (1928-2005) had been criticized for sometimes acting more like a political power broker than a prudent moral teacher. To journalist and public relations practitioner Ramon Isberto, the Cardinal “always appeared to relish his role as mediator, go-between, and king maker or unmaker.”

In December 2006, Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias publicly called on soldiers “to defend the Constitution” by joining the “prayer rally” against Charter Change to be held at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, and organized mainly by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. By issuing mostly moralistic or morally judgmental statements against the proponents of Charter Change, several bishops have not helped clarify the complex and muddled issue of the strengths and weaknesses of the 1987 Constitution.

Both Church and State have contributed to the weakness of democracy and patriotism in the country. As sociologist Arnold Alamon puts it: “The State and religion, the two institutions whose primary function is to forge social solidarity, have repeatedly failed in this task owing to their colonial origins. Instead, we continue to draw our moral identities from our clan memberships which served as our pre-colonial moral and political communities.”

Time with Books, Time with Friends

2009-11-14T06:24:00.000-08:00

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die…a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-7).

The annual National Book Awards is a timely occasion to speak about the best books published in our country and to celebrate Filipino excellence in writing and publishing in the past year. The best books offer texts, images, and blank spaces that generate active reflection and meaningful action. Bad books breed mere words in which the more the words the less the meaning, and the multiplication of mere words is the work of the fool or the scoundrel.

As the prospective candidates for next year’s elections engage in mature and premature campaigning, our society will become noisier with both empty words and effective words, words that bring fresh air and foul air with showbiz glitter. More than ever, we shall need periods of quiet reflection to help us tell the difference between the relevant and the trivial, the reality and the hyperbole, the attainable and the unattainable. Reading a good book can help our spirits seek or create light even in the midst of deep dark heat.

Reading a good book in a reflective way is like interacting with a true friend, whose word is reliable and who helps enlighten and enliven us. An Ilokano proverb says: “To libro iso ti gayyem/ Nga saan amo a masoctan ti rupana” (A book is a friend/ you can never change its face).

With true friends with whom we can eat and take in words of wit and wisdom, time is better spent. The Good Book reminds us: as there is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die, everything is breath; everything is transient. Life is short especially for the children of the streets, the sons of the soil, and the daughters of the dumpsite.

Everything we do or produce is transient. Thus, many men especially rulers throughout history have been obsessed with producing something that endures, something that would enable them to live beyond the grave at least in human memory. Some scholars and pseudo-scholars produce books in the hope that they would be in libraries forever or at least become footnotes in future books.

In the transience of our lives, we should waste no time, but spend it with true friends, or use it to seek true friends, both friends of the written word and friends of the breathing and living word, as every person is a story or an anthology of stories.

For the past 28 years, members of the reading public have found it easier to discover books as friends, or to choose new friends of the written word, through an annual recognition of the finest among local books, authors, and publishers, and for this the Manila Critics Circle (MCC) deserves the gratitude of government, the book industry, and our reading public.

Two years ago, the Manila Critics Circle invited the National Book Development Board to be a full partner in the organization of the National Book Awards. As part of our 5-year National Book Development Plan, the NBDB considers book awards and the promotion of award-winning books among the priority activities for the development of the creative sectors in the book industry and for the enhancement of industry competitiveness.

In the MCC-NBDB partnership, we have instituted a pre-screening process that involves reputable academic institutions and professional organizations in the short-listing of nominated books in various categories. The NBDB and the MCC recognize and are grateful for the invaluable help of various institutions, organizations, and individuals in the pre-screening process and in the selection of the finalists and winners. This year is another milestone because not only will the National Book Awardees receive beautifully designed trophies, all of them for the first time will receive modest cash prizes also.

We congratulate this year’s awardees and finalists. Their books will become part of a 28-year collection, which can offer a foretaste of the book-lovers’ Paradise, the paradisal library where knowledge of good and evil, power and weakness, life and death has to be digested by everybody who wants to stay there.

The National Book Awards and Philippine Book Development have gone a long way, yet we still have many miles to go in pursuit of our dream of a Filipino nation that eats well, reads well, and achieves well: a nation of lifelong learners and lifelong achievers. This is not the time to give up on the dream. We are on our way, and occasions like the National Book Awards keep us hopeful that the time will come when we will get there.

Disasters and Miracles

2009-10-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

If the Creator Spirit respects the (sometimes destructive) laws of nature and the (sometimes hurtful) decisions of people, why do miracles still happen, although rarely? In our world where many suffer unnecessarily owing to human actions, natural processes like typhoons, and their combination in ecological-social disasters, should we often hope for miracles?

A miracle is a “supernatural intervention” in the cause-and-effect sequences of the everyday world. The Roman Catholic attitude is: “openness to the possibility of miracles in principle, but skepticism toward any particular alleged miracle in practice” (Peter Berger). Catholics are open to the possibility of miracles because the Creator Spirit retains the freedom and power to intervene even as it freely abstains from gross intervention in the world of nature and humanity.

Miracles have happened though rarely. The rarity of a miracle is necessary, otherwise we will not learn to be responsible and resourceful. If during floods God will intervene to enable us to walk on water or to make our homes float safely, nobody will bother to study and learn the science of rainfall and water flows from highlands to lowlands, and everybody will be careless and lazy in leaving plastic and garbage to clog the drainage systems and letting urbanization and "development" happen haphazardly or without sustainability.

Hindi ba "sa Diyos ang awa, sa tao ang gawa"? Kapag panay ang himala (o sa Diyos lang ang gawa), ang tao'y magwawalang-bahala. (Do we not say "to God be mercy, to humanity activity"? When miracles are many, and to God alone be activity, humanity takes on irresponsibility.)

God has a purpose for the rare miracle. In the gospel of John, Christ’s miracles are aptly called “signs” (semeia in Greek) such as turning water into wine, clearing the temple, healing the sick, the disabled and the blind, feeding five thousand men, and raising Lazarus. What is vital about every miracle of Christ is its function as a sign: to inspire, strengthen faith and hope, transform attitude and mobilize acts of love and solidarity.

Christ complained about those who were developing a mania for miracles: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe” (John 4:48). A high point of the gospel is Christ’s declaration: “Blessed are those who have not seen [wonders] and yet have believed” (20:29).

When miracles lose their rarity, they lose their effectivity. An explosion of miracles will likely lead to shallow faith. The best miracle is the significant deed, word, or experience that leads to conversion or inner transformation.

In the story of the sick and suffering Job in the Hebrew Bible, before his health and wealth were restored, the miracle happened when he confessed to God: “I know that You can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted…My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I disown what I have said and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-6).

Even if the real-life Job would remain poor and ill, the miracle has happened, for “as far as Job is concerned, suffering as a problem has no more significance because he has seen God with his own eyes” (Marcel Gervais).

Walang himala…
Walang himala kapag walang magbabago sa puso natin!
Makakaasa ng himala o hiwaga ng pagbabalik-loob ang sinumang masigasig maghanap nito.

No miracle happens…
No miracle happens when nothing changes in our hearts!
One can hope for the miracle of conversion when one really seeks it. The best miracle is the return or the homecoming to the deep or true self, where the Spirit of holiness, solidarity, and wisdom dwells.

Dear City, Wretched City

2009-09-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

Are private contractors and construction companies doing enough in lending their heavy equipment like payloaders and dump trucks in order to help local governments, the MMDA, and the DPWH to clean up the mounds of mud, trash & debris left in the wake of the recent flood? Perhaps government should consider blacklisting those contractors that offer little or no help.

Those who can lend heavy equipment for the clean-up of Marikina communities are urged to send the equipment to Marikina City Hall and look for Ken Sueno or Ryan Salvador.
As we struggle with the wretchedness of our devastated communities and locales, let me share a partial reproduction of the piece "Dear City" by Filipina poet Conchitina Cruz:

"What comes from heaven is always a blessing, the enemy is not rain. Rain is the subject of prayer, the kind gesture of saints. Dear City, explain your irreverence: in you, rain is a visitor with nowhere to go. Where is the ground that knows only the love of water? What are the passageways to your heart? Pity the water that stays and rises on the streets, pity the water that floods into houses, so dark and filthy and heavy with rats and dead leaves and plastic. How ashamed water is to be what you have made it. What have you done to its beauty, its graceful body in pictures of oceans, its clear face in a glass? We walk home and cannot see our feet in the flood. We forget to thank the gods for their kindness. We look for someone to blame and turn to you, wretched city, because we are men and women of honor, we feed our children three meals a day, we never miss an election. The only explanation is you, dear city..."

"Dear City" is found in the book, "Train of Thought: Poems from 'Tulaan sa Tren,'" published by the National Book Development Board in 2008. Tulaan sa Tren was a project of the NBDB and the Light Railway Transit Authority in which posters of Philippine poems in English and Filipino were displayed in some of the trains of the LRT 2 line and recordings of the poems were played through the public address system of the LRT 2 stations during certain hours from September to November 2008.

As we help rebuild communities and lives after the great flood, may the words, verses, tracks and trains of thought and tone from our veteran and budding poets consolidate our collective conscience, clarify our sense of reality, and strengthen our sense of country.

Typhoons & the Creator Spirit

2009-09-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

Creation is not a one-time event at the beginning of time but a process that the Creator began and which the Creator Spirit continues up to our own times. In Psalm 104:30, the psalmist praises God, and proclaims: "When You send your Spirit, creatures are created, and You renew the face of the earth." Through a process view of creation, Christians can welcome the scientific theory of the evolution of species.

What is the involvement of the Creator Spirit in calamities like those brought about by Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) since Saturday last week and Typhoon Frank last year and by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991? Were these disasters willed by God as punishments for the sins of our people or of our leaders (like Gloria Macapagal Arroyo today and Cory Aquino in 1991)? Or to be accurate, were they not ecological-social disasters?

The Creator Spirit nurtures life and creation by freely opting to respect not only human freedom but also physical laws, which have evolved sometimes gradually, sometimes radically in deep time or millions and billions of years. The Spirit nurtures creation by making room for created creativity (and possible destructiveness) on the part of creatures and natural forces.

God has endowed human beings, animals, plants, and natural forces with significant autonomy from divine control. In this sense, the process of continuing creation is also the Spirit's free exercise of self-restraint in abstaining from a heavy-handed regulation of the natural world and history. The Creator Spirit freely abstains from gross intervention in the created creativity and destructiveness of nature and humanity, while at the same time this selfsame Spirit actively accompanies nature and humanity throughout their gradual and radical evolution. In this view, the Spirit's great and unequaled power is more persuasive than coercive.

The formation and movement of typhoons are part of the created creativity and destructiveness of the earth, its atmosphere, and its geo-physics, which are autonomous from the Spirit's control. Definitely the Creator Spirit did not want the loss of lives, livelihood, and homes and the displacement of people in the wake of the rains and floods initiated by Typhoon Ondoy, yet the Spirit respected the complex atmospheric and geo-physical laws that caused the sustained heavy downpour and the complex social forces and personal decisions that rendered individuals and communities ill-prepared for or maladapted to nature's ways.

Does this view offer adequate hope and compassion to the many people who are suffering from the calamity? What has to be added and expressed, not just in words, is the belief that, in the wake of the extensive suffering caused by natural, man-made, and eco-social calamities, God suffers with those who suffer, and grieves with those who grieve. God's Spirit groans with those who groan, and thus a true believer cannot be indifferent in the face of such suffering.

Ensuring Textbook Quality

2009-09-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

To ensure quality textbooks in the private school system, every school or school association like the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) should set up a textbook procurement system that requires all prospective books to go through an evaluation committee that has clear and established procedures.

Private schools should have an adequate screening system that carefully evaluates the books that they require parents to purchase for their children. If the schools effectively evaluate books before prescribing them, then the publishers will be forced to produce those of better quality knowing that there will be no market for substandard publications. After a textbook has been determined by reliable evaluation to be of good quality, only then should there be other considerations (e.g. discounts & incentives) for any procurement decision.

Unfortunately, it has been reported that some schools make their procurement decisions primarily on the basis of the discounts and incentives (e.g. low-interest loans to finance a school building, expensive gifts like a new school vehicle, or sponsorships of local and foreign trips of teachers & administrators) offered by the publishers. This practice is a major reason for the entry of poor quality books in some schools.

How can the National Book Development Board help private schools and their associations? The NBDB has a Textbook Review Service in which experts from different centers of excellence evaluate books or manuscripts that are voluntarily submitted by publishers and schools. Results of the evaluation are considered by the Governing Board, which then urges the publisher either to take into account the minor or major recommendations of the evaluators or, when the book has been determined to be of poor quality, to stop its production and sale.

Since 2008, the NBDB has given Quality Seal Awards to encourage publishers to produce better books. The agency solicits nominations from schools and publishers for the best books initially in Mathematics and English used in basic education. Six Math books and 1 English book so far have been awarded. These books were judged on the basis of content, editing and design.

I recommend that associations like CEAP should formulate and require their members to adopt a Code of Ethics in Textbook Procurement in which violators will be held accountable and which will promote fairness to the learners, their parents, and the publishers, and respect for rules and procedures.

Such a Code should make it easy for school administrators to answer questions like the following:

Is it right to solicit or accept gifts and sponsorships from publishers and suppliers?

Is it right for a school to demand high (e.g. 40%) discounts from the publishers and then sell the textbooks to the parents at the original prices?

Is it right for a school to monopolize the supply of its required textbooks especially before the opening of classes? (Some schools prohibit the publisher from making the books available through commercial outlets that might sell them at lower prices.)

In the particular case of CEAP schools, which are owned and managed by religious institutes or members of the clergy, should not Catholic parents rightly expect them to be models of fairness and accountability in their textbook procurement?

Education & Readership towards 2010 & beyond

2009-09-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

“Our greatest asset is our people…We must invest in our people.”

This is one of the principles of the Citizens Reform Agenda 2010, which was publicly launched last September 2 by over a hundred citizens organizations. Many of our people suffer from hunger, homelessness and unemployment. To enable them to lift themselves out of poverty requires greater investment in quality education and health services.

The National Book Development Board firmly believes that the promotion of lifelong learning through readership leads to both national poverty reduction and book industry development in the medium to long terms. Thus, the agency completed the National Book Development Plan 2005-2010, and pursued its priority strategies of developing and supporting local authorship, enhancing the competitiveness of the industry, and raising textbook quality.

To develop authorship and the creative sector, the NBDB initiated and guided the enactment into law of the 2009 National Book Development Trust Fund (R.A. 9521) to support Philippine authorship in science and technology and other learning areas through annual grants that shall be distributed equitably throughout the regions.

The NBDB helped organize the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society (FILCOLS), which has been accepted as a member of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations. The agency will support FILCOLS in its pursuit of fair remuneration and adequate protection for authors and publishers whose copyrighted works are reproduced and used mostly by educational institutions and their teachers and students.

Among its accomplishments to enhance industry competitiveness are the 2003 and 2007 NBDB Readership Surveys, which were conducted nationwide and which provided pioneering data to publishers, authors, and educators on the reading habits and preferences of Filipino adults and children. In 2008, the agency organized the Philippine Association of Scholarly and Academic Publishers (PASAP) to address the needs of university-based publishers and authors.

To enhance textbook quality in the private school system, the NBDB has offered its Textbook Review Service since 2006, and launched in 2008 the annual Quality Seal Awards initially for Mathematics and English basic education books.

These accomplishments and more have been made possible by the professionalization of the NBDB as an agency and its insulation from vested interests.

May the new President in 2010 appoint members of the Governing Board who will be as competent, active and responsible as the current members. In and beyond 2010, may the NBDB continue to provide the vision and leadership in book development and readership promotion through policy and industry research, market development interventions, and capability-building programs in support of lifelong learning among our citizenry and for the growth of Philippine book publishing into a globally competitive industry.

Good vs Evil in 2010?

2009-09-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

"If we continue to confuse political moralizing with political analysis, we will remain blind to the systemic nature of our political crises. We will forever be ousting leaders and putting in new ones, without ever making a dent on the mass poverty and social inequality that have plagued our nation since its founding." (Randy David)
Politicians who are projecting the 2010 elections as a battle of good versus evil are resorting to political moralizing, and are in danger of misleading our people especially if they reduce the root of the "evil" to one person or family, and obscure the systemic nature and the inter-generational persistence of our unsatisfactory national condition.
The primary root of our inter-generational poverty and inequality of opportunities is the enduring oligarchic system of rent-seeking families among whom are families that control media empires that prefer to entertain and sensationalize rather than provide balanced reports and validated information, and which seem to be excited to portray 2010 as a dramatic showdown between good and evil. Political moralizing is an easy but foolish attempt to raise our citizenry to a higher level of motivation and action. Let us resist this oversimplification of our national condition.

For Optional Bloc Voting in 2010

2009-08-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

Optional bloc voting in the 2010 elections is one of the practical and easy ways to strengthen the political party system, and thus strengthen democracy, in the Philippines. Optional bloc voting entails that the design of the election ballot will allow a voter who wants to vote for all the national candidates of a particular party from president, vice-president, to the 12 senators to simply mark a box corresponding to the party. Since this is optional, those who still want to mix the candidates of different parties can do so by shading the boxes in front of their names in the long ballot for the automated elections.
Optional bloc voting will make voting easier for those who do vote straight for a party's national candidates, and will make the counting easier, as long as the counting machines are programmed properly. More importantly, optional bloc voting will encourage the candidates to actively campaign for their parties and to take their party platforms seriously. Thus it will strengthen party discipline, loyalty, and teamwork.
Yesterday, I asked Comelec Chair Jose Melo about the possibility of optional bloc voting in the coming elections, and he said that it would require a law and it did not seem feasible because of insufficient time plus its negative baggage because it was practiced during the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa (Transitional National Parliament) elections in which Ninoy Aquino and the Laban candidates were cheated and the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement) of the Marcos dictatorship swept the polls.
Chair Melo might be unaware that bloc voting was practiced during the Commonwealth period before the Second World War, and it is practiced with favorable results in some current democracies. Even though I believe that, strictly speaking, a new law is not required for the Comelec to design the ballot to facilitate optional bloc voting, Congress might have to pass a law in order to obligate the Comelec to offer the option to voters. Conscientious citizens should clamor both Congress and the Comelec to offer Filipinos this option so we can strengthen our democracy. The return of optional bloc voting can be considered one of the priorities for parties today.

Bread & Freedom: A 1975 Ninoy Aquino Letter

2009-08-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

Below is a reproduction of a letter that Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino Jr, at the height of his hunger strike in prison during Martial Law, wrote to one of his lawyers, Raul M. Gonzalez, one of the few persons who would visit and talk with him periodically in his prison cell. This letter is published for the first time.

April 7, 1975
6:25 pm

Atty. Raul Gonzalez
p e r s o n a l

My dearest Raul:

I'm afraid this will be my last letter. I feel very, very weak and my coordination is bad. My knees are wobbly and as of this moment, I've already lost 13 pounds (161-148). But I cannot rest till I've written you a few words of thanks for everything.

I'm sure you've come across--in your readings--some of the teachings of Confucius, the great Chinese sage on the dichotomy of life which he postulated in his ying-yang principle. Marx calls its dialectics. Mao calls it the law of contradictions. To Lenin, it is the law of opposites.

Give it any label, it is still the ying-and-the-yang. According to the Old Guru, in every strength there is a lurking weakness (the Achilles heel) and in every dark cloud there is a silver lining.

If we are to apply this principle to our present situation, there must be a lurking weakness in the seemingly awesome powers and strength of Marcos. And this weakness, I think, lies in the field of morals and moral leadership. True we have lost the bulk of our LP following especially among the governors, mayors and councilors who have been cowed into submission and subservience. But what we lost in quantity, we have gained in quality among the religious, the students, the enlightened labor elements and the middle intelligentsia.

Hence, when you tried to dissuade me from taking the final plunge, I tried to explain to you the need to snatch the moral leadership in the present struggle. We must show by example, not mere words, to our people that there are still a few who would willingly risk death to attain liberation.

Describing the state of affairs in Hitler's Germany in the middle thirties, Niebuhr had this to say: "Our society is like a woman who throws a garish dress over underwear that is unwashed for months, soiled and rugged." He could say the same thing about our society today. Our job is clear: ours is to expose the truth.

Disproportions of power anywhere in the human community are fruitful of injustice, but a system which gives some men absolute power over other men results in evils which are worse than injustice. I think that you will agree with me that this is so.

Some observers have commented that in the hierarchy of values of the Filipino, security comes before liberty because the mass still wallows in poverty, are devoid of special skills that provide regular income, are exposed to the perils of an economy controlled by a few rich and they therefore fear insecurity more than they fear the loss of liberty. While I agree with the analysis of the situation, I cannot accept the conclusion that the choice is either bread or freedom. To the Latin Americans, it is 'Pan o Libertad.'

I submit the conjunction should be 'and' and not 'or.' It should be bread and freedom and this is attainable under an honest and just regime.

In the boredom of my isolation, I often engaged in mental gymnastics and built castles in the air. I had plans of working with you on some national projects that will give our people both bread and freedom, security and liberty.

I saw you doing the homework, while I did the field work. I saw you doing the planning and I the implementing.

Senator Tañada on several occasions told me of your unselfishness and dedication, of your practical approach to problems, of your down-to-earth observation of everyday human affairs. These are the qualities needed by today's leadership. But above all these traits, you possess the integrity of character that could not be cowed by fear or threats to life. These last qualities are vital to greatness--and make the difference between the ordinary public servant and the statesman.

I'm afraid, my dream-plans will now have to be shelved. But I hope you'll continue the good work in your usual selfless dedication. I hope to clear a little patch in the forest and my effort will not be in vain if behind me come the tillers.

Please give your wife my warm affections and I sincerely believe you are what you are because of her. Tell her I shall await with bated breath our inevitable reunion in the celestial kingdom of Love!

Affectionately yours,

Ninoy

Ninoy Aquino: Hero Who Could Cry

2009-08-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Below is an excerpt from the book "A Hero Worth Living For" (ISBN 978-971-91523-9-2), written and published by veteran journalist and teacher, Alice Colet Villadolid, in 2007. The excerpt (pp. 104-5) shows Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino, Jr. as a "freedom fighter who could blush and cry." Villadolid wrote:

Soon after Ninoy's brutal assassination on August 21, 1983, I was recalling memories of him with his best friend, Salvador 'Doy' Laurel who would later become vice president. Doy remembered how in the month before Ninoy was killed, they were together in San Francisco, USA. They decided to see the movie "Gandhi" at a neighborhood theater. Doy recalled, "Scenes showing demonstrators being bludgeoned brought tears to his eyes. I felt like crying too. It had a special appeal to us being both in the Opposition. As Gandhi fasted to [near] death in the movie, we both cried."

In June 1983, another Opposition figure met with him in New York City. Raul M. Gonzalez had been one of Ninoy's defense lawyers when he ran and won a senatorial seat in 1967 [and when he was tried by a military tribunal under Martial Law]. The opponent had moved to disqualify him on the ground he had violated the legal minimum age requirement that he should have been at least 35 when elected senator.

Gonzalez told me in an interview, "Ninoy fought this legal battle with prodigiousness and skill. He argued before the Electoral Tribunal that the term 'election' in the law referred to the entire process, from balloting through counting of votes and proclaiming the results. So he would have reached the minimum age for a senator when he was proclaimed elected."

Gonzalez recalled that in the 1983 meeting in New York City, he had accompanied Ninoy to the Time-Life Building for an interview: "Then he went shopping around Times Square. He was looking for an E.T. doll for his daughter Kris. We could not find any. Yet he kept on walking, looking into every shop for the doll. 'Kris will be so disappointed I did not find it,' Ninoy said."

Marikina Book Mini-Critique

2009-08-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

Below is a partial reproduction of a mini-critique of the book, "The Will To Change: Marikina and Its Innovations," published by the Ateneo School of Government and the Marikina City government. The evaluation was made by Dr. Isagani Cruz, a multi-awarded English and Filipino writer and a founder of the Manila Critics Circle. The whole book is downloadable in 4 parts from the School of Government website. Click Resources then Research Papers & Publications.

Marikina, the Book
MINI CRITIQUE
by Isagani Cruz
<http://www.philstar.com/ArticleListByAuthorName.aspx?AuthorName=Isagani+Cruz>
(The Philippine Star) August 13, 2009

Here are excerpts from my speech during the launching last month of *The Will to Change: Marikina and Its Innovations*, edited by Dennis T. Gonzalez:

Literary critics talk about a book in terms of the five elements of the reading experience, namely, how a book mirrors the reality of its subject, how it expresses what its creators want to say, how it affects its readers, how it continues the tradition of books of its kind, and how it is put together as a text.

How does the book mirror the reality of Marikina the city? Marikina is the most competitive city in the National Capital Region, one of the top three most competitive cities in the country, one of the most business-friendly cities, one of the healthiest cities, one of four model cities in
infrastructure, one of the most liveable cities, and so on. It is well on its way to attaining its dream of becoming a Little Singapore. Does the book mirror that reality? Is the book well-organized, neat, tasteful, efficient, customer-friendly or reader-friendly, just like the city? My answer is simply *yes*.

How does the book express what its publishers, editor, and writers want to say? Very simply, they wanted to say that other cities should learn from Marikina. It’s really a how-to book – how to manage a city, how to remove corruption, how to instil discipline, how to attract business, and so on. The book is designed like a manual, a do-it-yourself guide for mayors and other urban leaders. Does it express what it wants to express? My answer is simply *yes*.

How does the book affect its readers? We have to wait until the readers themselves will vote with their wallets (if they buy the book), or with their time (if they sit down to go over the whole book), or with their comments (if they communicate these to the publishers). I live in Alabang
and I’m perfectly happy there, but if I had to save money for a house all over again, I would want to settle in Marikina. So if you asked me if the book affected me the way it’s supposed to affect me, my answer would simply be *yes*.

How does the book continue the tradition of books of its kind? Ordinarily, that kind of judgment would be done by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle. *The bad news is that the editor heads the NBDB, so this book is automatically disqualified from receiving a National Book Award.*

To confirm that it compares well with books on other cities, just put it on the same bookshelf as those other books and see which book browsers will pick up. It’s safe to bet on this book. Is the book firmly in the tradition of inspirational and informational books about cities? My answer is simply *yes*.

Priorities for Parties

2009-08-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Strong competitive parties are necessary for a strong and inclusive democracy, where the State protects the political and economic rights of both majority and minority groups, the rule of law prevails, and there is equal opportunity to justice. Philippine political parties, however, can be characterized as weak in general.

For sociologist Randolf David, the following characteristics of Philippine political parties make them quite different from North American and West-European parties:
(1) official membership is limited to politicians, (2) there is no regular recruitment of non-politician members, (3) there are no regular sources for party funds, (4) there are few party activities outside the election season, (5) party platforms are prepared mainly for compliance with State documentary requirements, and (6) loyalty to personalities is stronger than party loyalty. (David, 170)

David gave this assessment in 1996, before the Bayan Muna (People First) party was organized in 1999 and won seats in Congress since 2001 and every succeeding election. Bayan Muna is the political party of a militant mass movement that identifies foreign domination and feudal bondage as the basic problems of Philippine society. While it is the most disciplined party and it actively builds up mass membership, it remains a minority party. Some groups accuse Bayan Muna of being an electoral front of the outlawed New People’s Army of the communist insurgency.

The bigger parties (Lakas-Kampi, NPC, Liberal Party) maintain their dominance partly because of patronage politics or the prevailing culture of patron-clientism and dependency especially among the masses. The characteristics identified by David are reaffirmed a decade later by Rodolfo Severino, who concludes that there are “no real political parties” in the country “through which people can articulate their preferences, priorities and grievances” (Severino, 336).

For believers in inclusive democracy, it is imperative to strengthen Philippine political parties so they can do better in the following: (1) promoting a clear political vision and coherent policies that persuade and inspire the citizenry, (2) providing a system and context for the theoretical and practical training of current and future political leaders, and (3) raising campaign funds with efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

The parties ought to prioritize the enactment of a Political Party Development Law (House Bill 3655 and Senate Bill 67), which is stalled in the two houses of Congress. Among the major features of the proposed law are the following: the creation of “a State Subsidy Fund for both party development and campaign financing,” the requirement of full disclosure and the establishment of a monitoring system in the use of the Subsidy Fund, the requirement of an established participatory process for selecting the candidates of an accredited party, and the punishment of party-switching or political turncoatism (Casiple, 2-4).

The political parties have weak party discipline, and this weakness has roots in the history of successful party-switching by presidential candidates. The late Presidents Ramon Magsaysay (1953-1957) and Ferdinand Marcos (1965-1986) won after they changed parties to challenge the incumbent presidents who were running for re-election (Navarro, 113-15, 215-20). Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) participated in the party convention of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), the biggest party in 1991, to offer himself as its presidential candidate, but when he was not chosen, he left and formed his own party, Lakas-CMD, with which he won.

Besides a Party Development Law that can strengthen party discipline, there are other priorities, which can be drawn from a survey on political parties which was commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Philippines and conducted nationwide by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) on 24-29 November 2006. The survey respondents were 1,200 voting-age adults divided equally among four major study areas: the National Capital Region (NCR), Balance Luzon (outside NCR), the Visayas, and Mindanao. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3% for the entire country. Below are the major findings.

General Dissatisfaction

Nationwide, two-thirds (67%) of the respondents say that no political party “truly promotes their welfare,” while 27% identify some political party that does so. Regardless of area (NCR, Bal. Luzon, Visayas, & Mindanao) or class (ABC, D, E), most of the respondents say that no party promotes their welfare. The 27% who say otherwise can be considered party-leaning.

Party-leaning is weak among all classes from ABC, the upper to middle classes, to class D, the working poor, and class E, the very poor. The low percentage of Filipinos that are party-leaning suggests that the parties have not sufficiently informed, inspired, and persuaded the citizenry about their political visions, policies, and platforms.

Unfortunately, “party platforms are prepared mainly for submission to the Commission on Elections.…They are not meant to be a guide to the political education of the electorate, nor to govern the conduct of those elected to public office under party emblems.” (David, 171)

The political parties are neither inspiring nor persuasive, for they “are for the most part only loose coalitions of self-centered individuals and groups without any strong binding force or program to which they are committed” (Carroll, 158).

Party Leaning and Educational Attainment

The percentage of respondents who have no party leaning decreases with progress in education. Around four-fifths (81%) of the respondents who are not elementary graduates, 69% of elementary but not high school graduates, 63% of high school but not college graduates, and 56% of college graduates say that no party promotes their welfare.

While 27% of Filipinos (projected at 13.6 million) can name some political party that promotes their welfare, 12% of non-elementary graduates, 25% of elementary but not high school graduates, 29% of high school but not college graduates, and 38% of college graduates can do so. Party leaning among Filipino adults seems to increase with higher educational attainment.

Party Characteristics

Respondents were shown certain characteristics of political parties, and were asked to identify to which parties they applied. The characteristics are as follows: (a) does many things that benefit the citizens; (b) has noble leaders; (c) has a realistic platform; (d) recruits candidates who are truly qualified; (e) interacts with many sectors like farmers, workers, indigenous peoples, etc; (f) faithful to the true will of the party members.

A plurality of Filipino adults (28-31%), regardless of class, says that no party has the favorable characteristics enumerated above. Among party-leaning Filipinos, college graduates have a stronger tendency to affirm those characteristics in some party.

Except with one characteristic, Lakas-CMD is the top choice followed by the Liberal Party (LP) and Bayan Muna, among the respondents who have identified a party that possesses those favorable characteristics.

Party Capabilities

Respondents were asked which political party “has great capability” in the following:
(a) addressing the problems of the economy; (b) fighting inflation in the cost of living; (c) eradicating graft and corruption; (d) promoting peace and order; (e) reconciling with Muslim rebels; (f) resolving the communist insurgency.

A plurality of Filipino adults (29-33%), regardless of class, says that no party has the capabilities enumerated above. Lakas is the top choice followed by the LP, among the respondents who identify a party that possesses those capabilities.

On the question about which party has great capability in “reconciling with Muslim rebels,” 33% say no party. As regards geographical area, there is a notable gap between 44% of NCR respondents and 24% of Mindanao respondents who say no party.

On the question about which party has great capability in “resolving the communist insurgency,” 33% say no party. As regards geographical area, there is a notable gap between 45% of NCR respondents and 27% of Mindanao respondents who say no party.

Party Membership

Party leaning increases with educational attainment among Filipino adults in which 38% of college graduates have party leaning, while only 12% of non-elementary graduates do so. Party-leaning college graduates, however, have the lowest percentage of those who consider themselves party members. Among party-leaning Filipinos, 10% of college graduates, 17% of high school but not college graduates, 22% of elementary but not high school graduates, and 22% of non-elementary graduates consider themselves party members. These figures suggest that political parties ought to target more college graduates in their recruitment for party membership.

Nationwide, only 5% of Filipino adults (approximately 2.4 million) consider themselves party members, and Mindanao is notable for having the highest percentage (11%) of those who regard themselves as party members. Also, party members nationwide constitute only 18% of those Filipinos who have party leaning.

Reasons for Membership

Respondents were asked to choose from five reasons that would induce them to become members or continue to be members of a political party, and were allowed multiple responses. A third (35%) say they want to learn more about politics; 28% want to participate in selecting party candidates for national offices; 24% want to participate in selecting party candidates for local offices; 19% want to have access to politicians; 13% want to participate in formulating the party programs. At 37%, class D has the greatest interest in learning more about politics, with class E at 34%, and classes ABC at 26%.

Among college graduates, the opportunity to select national candidates is considered slightly more important (32%) than the opportunity to learn more about politics (30%). Also, college graduates have the most interest in participating in the formulation of party programs (16%).

For those college graduates who consider themselves party members, their interest in formulating party programs is their most preferred reason (47%) for their continuing membership. Political parties ought to target more college graduates for recruitment if they want members who have less interest in patronage politics and more interest in shaping party programs and policies.

For party members in classes ABC, access to politicians is their most preferred reason (59%) for membership, while for those in class D, this is their least preferred reason (20%). The most preferred reason of party members in class D is the opportunity to participate in selecting the party’s local candidates (37%).

The responses suggest that the parties will strengthen themselves and their support from the grass roots by engaging in recruitment and educational activities especially among class D, which has the most interest in political education, and by involving their respective members in the process of selecting the local and national candidates of the parties.

Without a law that requires an established participatory process in selecting candidates and which strengthens and regulates campaign financing, candidate selection “can be bought from the parties” (Hellmann, 10).

Party-Switching

When asked about party-switching by politicians after elections, about half of the respondents (49%) say this is neither bad nor right. A third (35%) say this is bad (usually or always), while 15% say this is right (usually or always). The high plurality of respondents who are neutral or indifferent on this issue is one of the roots of weak party discipline.

Neutral opinion on party-switching prevails in Balance Luzon (54%), in class D (50%), and among high school but not college graduates (54%), with the balance of opinion tilting toward those who say it is bad. Negative opinion as regards party-switching is most pronounced in the Visayas (43%), in classes ABC (42%), and among college graduates (43%).

Negative opinion is higher among those who consider themselves party members (49%) than that of the general population (35%), and this negative opinion is most pronounced in the Visayas (67%), among non-elementary graduates (74%) and college graduates (66%), and in class D (59%). It seems that party members in class D are the ones who can be considered vanguards against party-switching.

Among the 35% who say party-switching is bad, two-thirds (65%) say that politicians who do this should be removed from their posts rather than be fined or left unpunished, and this opinion has the highest percentages regardless of area, class, and educational attainment especially in the Visayas (75%), in class E (74%), and among elementary but not high school graduates (76%).

Importance of Candidate over Party

When asked about the importance of the candidate versus the party in their voting decisions, pluralities of Filipinos by area and educational attainment said that “the candidate and the party matter equally,” whether one voted for a member of Congress (46%) or for a Mayor (44%). The balance of opinion tilts towards those who say that “only the candidate matters,” whether one votes for a member of Congress (29%) or for Mayor (33%).

High pluralities of class D (49%) and class E (41%) say that candidate and party matter equally when voting for Congress. With classes ABC, 40% say that candidate and party matter equally, but another 40% say that only the candidate matters, when voting for Congress. Only the candidate matters for 28% of class D and 27% of class E.

When voting for Mayor, high pluralities of class D (47%) and class E (42%) say that candidate and party matter equally. With classes ABC, a high plurality (47%) says that only the candidate matters when voting for Mayor.

The tilt of opinion towards the candidate is stronger among classes ABC. For those who maintain the belief that candidate and party matter equally, class D should be their primary target of recruitment for party membership.

In the eyes of the public, the importance of a political party will never be able to sufficiently match or surpass the importance of its individual candidates, as long as the party’s commitment and effectiveness in helping its candidates towards electoral victory is not matched by its commitment and effectiveness in articulating and promoting a clear political vision and coherent policies and programs.

Awareness of Party Association of Prominent Politicians

When asked about which politicians came to mind when specific parties were mentioned, pluralities of the respondents either said “none” (36% to 43%) or they “don’t know” (35% to 38%). These responses show low public awareness of the link of prominent politicians with their respective parties. This low awareness suggests that politicians do insufficient public promotion of their parties.

Conclusion

Politicians and their parties have insufficiently informed, inspired, and persuaded the citizenry about their party visions, policies, and platforms. This partly explains the low percentage of Filipinos that are party-leaning (27%).

It is probable that insufficient party discipline and the propensity of many politicians to switch parties lessen party ability to persuade and inspire citizens to support party visions and policies, but in turn the high plurality of citizens (49%) who are neutral or indifferent to party-switching does not encourage political leaders to strengthen party discipline.

There is a significant minority (35%) of Filipinos who think that party-switching is usually or always bad, and most of those who hold this negative opinion agree that the political turncoat should be punished by removal from his/her elective post.

A plurality of Filipino adults (at least 28%), regardless of class, says that no party has favorable characteristics such as “has noble leaders,” “recruits candidates who are truly qualified,” “faithful to the true will of the party members,” etc; a plurality also says no party has great capabilities in “resolving the communist insurgency,” reconciling with Muslim rebels,” “promoting peace and order,” etc.

Among the Filipinos who identified a party as possessing the enumerated favorable characteristics and capabilities, Lakas-CMD, the biggest party, is the top choice in 11 out of 12 categories, with the Liberal Party as the 2^nd choice in 8 out of 12 categories. Bayan Muna is the top choice in 1 category, and the 2^nd choice in another category.

Pluralities of Filipinos by area and educational attainment say that the candidate and the party matter equally, whether one votes for a member of Congress (46%) or for a Mayor (44%). The balance of opinion, however, tilts towards those who say it is only the candidate that matters, and this tilt towards the candidate is strongest among classes ABC.

Political parties should take to heart the survey findings that show that the most preferred reason for party membership is the opportunity to learn more about politics (35%). In this light, parties ought to organize more educational and recruitment activities in which they articulate and explain their political visions and policies.

Unfortunately, political parties are mere electoral vehicles of politicians during the campaign period and their friendship clubs outside the election season. To ensure mass memberships, parties should do more recruitment of non-politicians like professionals, small entrepreneurs, and private sector employees from class D, which among the classes has the most interest in political education and the highest plurality of those who believe that the candidate and the party matter equally in voting for a national legislator and a local chief executive.

The parties will strengthen themselves and their support from the grass roots by involving their respective members in the process of selecting their national and local candidates. The opportunity to participate in the process of candidate selection follows the opportunity for political education as a major reason for Filipinos to join and stay in a party.

Parties should target also college graduates for recruitment, as they have the following: (a) the least interest in patronage politics, (b) the most interest in shaping party programs, (c) the highest percentage of those with party leaning, and (d) the lowest percentage of party members.

Political parties ought to prioritize political education and mass membership, as only 5% of Filipino adults (around 2.4 million) consider themselves party members, while there are 27% of Filipinos (around 13.6 million) who can be regarded as party-leaning or who do not think that all political parties are worthless to them.

The priorities ought to include also the completion of the Political Party Development Law that would create a State Subsidy Fund for party development and campaign financing, require an established participatory process for selecting party candidates, and punish party-switching.

Sources Consulted:

2006 Social Weather Stations (SWS) Survey on Philippine Political Parties

Carroll, John. “Democracy from below?” In Engaging Society: The Sociologist in a War Zone, 157-63. By id. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2006.

Casiple, Ramon. “Philippine Political Party Reform: Reality and Concrete Action.” Unpublished paper, 2008.

David, Randolf. “Political Parties in the Philippines.” In Reflections on Sociology and Philippine Society, 170-78. By id. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001.

Gonzalez, Dennis. “Elections, Popular Culture, and Democracy.” In How To Win an Election: Lessons from the Experts, 10-19. Edited by Chay F. Hofileña. Quezon City: Ateneo School of Government, 2006.

Hellmann, Olli. “The Organization of Political Parties in the Philippines: Western Theory Meets Eastern Experience.” Powerpoint presentation. Ateneo School of Government, Makati City, 23 June 2008.

Navarro, Nelson. What’s Happening to Our Country? The Life and Times of Emmanuel Pelaez. Makati City: Emmanuel Pelaez Foundation, 2008.

Severino, Rodolfo. “Summary, Conclusions, and Additional Thoughts.” In Whither the Philippines in the 21^st Century?, 330-45. Edited by Rodolfo Severino and Lorraine Salazar. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007.

Prayer for the Gift of Cory Aquino (1933-2009)

2009-08-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

O God, You have set Cory Aquino free
from the deep pit of pain and defeat.
You have overshadowed her with your wings,
safe under your bright and sunny feathers.
You have been tender and strong to her,

like a mother who protects her brood.
She had the heart to face every danger.

with your faithfulness as strength & defense.

Thank You for her spirit of courage & hope
which moved our people beyond fear & frustration.
Even though her faith was tested to its limit,
she prayed and clung to You, her rest & relief.
She trusted in You, the God who uplifts,
with a faith that moves mountains & levels hills.
Now her own spirit has seen & heard
your holy judgment & great mercy.
With her faith we shall escape lasting harm,
whatever ordeal shall come to our country.

She showed us that You are our hope.
You are our refuge and stronghold.
No great evil will overwhelm us;
no final destruction will crush us.
In your presence she will cheer for us
to take the high though narrow road.
In your holy strength, in impossible faith,
we shall bind the powers that corrupt & abuse.

In love You have bound yourself to us
to rescue from danger and distress
as we hold on to the mystery of mercy
that none can ever match or surpass.
We have known You in intimate trust.
Deep in our heart we want to be loyal & true.
In our mourning & sorrow You remain with us.
You will set us free in your inner radiance.

May we live like Cory to be full of years
and abundant in your peace and fidelity.

Innovative Marikina

2009-07-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

In the evening of 17 July 2009, the hard-bound 100-page book, "The Will To Change: Marikina and Its Innovations," was launched at the Ayala Museum, Makati City. Its three chapters were written by Dr. Rufo Mendoza, Anna Felicia Sanchez and Carl Javier, edited by Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, and jointly published by the Marikina City Government and the Ateneo School of Government.

The book was designed by award-winning designer Francisco 'Dopy' Doplon of ArtOne Design & Communications with several pieces from professional photographer Jay Alonzo.

A multi-awarded Filipino and English writer and critic, Dr. Isagani Cruz, offered a review of the book during the launch, and said that its content and design have achieved successfully the purpose of being able to inform, instruct, and inspire. The book is intended for public servants, teachers, students and conscientious citizens interested in local governance.

The book opens with a Foreword each from Sen. Francis 'Kiko' Pangilinan and Dean Antonio G.M. La Viña, JSD. The whole book with its high-resolution photos is freely downloadable in 4 parts by visiting www.asg.ateneo.edu and clicking Resources and then Research Papers & Publications.

Below is the Introduction by Carl Javier, a young writer of fiction and non-fiction and a teacher in creative writing at the University of the Philippines and Miriam College in Quezon City.

"Marikina and Its Innovations: Introduction"
In Marikina City Hall, as in any other city hall, there are always visitors. But its visitors in the morning when we started our interviews for this book were special. We were accustomed to seeing people filing all manner of paperwork, people asking officials to settle disputes, people showing up asking for handouts. What we had that particular morning was a class of children on a field trip.

The children, perhaps in kindergarten or first grade, were brought to the city hall so they could witness how government works. In that act many things were accomplished. The children saw the cleanliness, orderliness, and activeness of a government center. At this point in their young lives, they took in images, sights and sounds of what they should expect from a public agency, why public service is desirable, and why city hall and its workers are valuable.

Much like the many visible and invisible influences and interactions in that field trip, many of Marikina’s governance practices and innovations have worked on multiple levels. Its innovations have worked up passions and emotions, advanced personal and public values, improved the delivery of city services, and yielded intended and unintended fruits.

In producing a book about the city’s innovations, there were difficulties faced. Chief among them was deciding which among the many innovations were to be adequately described and which to be merely mentioned. With the city amassing awards and accolades for its accomplishments, one can end up with a thick tome in describing and analyzing them.

The next major difficulty was deciding how much technical information to exclude in order to make the book accessible to both busy local officials and conscientious citizens who are willing to read and learn new things about local governance.

The book’s first chapter describes the social engineering and culture change that the Marikina city government has practiced and preached. The next chapter describes the financial growth and economic management that accompanied and supported the change in social behavior and practices.

The last chapter looks at the city hall bureaucracy and how it has been professionalized and turned into an efficient, well-oiled machine that eases and pleases people. These chapters are products primarily of interviews with selected city hall officials and personnel, local entrepreneurs, and ordinary residents, young and old.

The changes to the city did not just happen. There was much that needed to be overcome such as insufficient resources, the ingrained bureaucratic culture of mediocrity and inefficiency, and popular skepticism, resistance and anger. To overcome them took not only careful planning and implementation, but more so political will, the will to change.

Like the children brought to Marikina City Hall, we can learn much in turning our attention to the city and its governance practices and innovations. This book serves as that tour for readers interested in finding out what has been done to make Marikina the successful city that it is. Hopefully, readers will find a similar will to change things around them and within them for the better and the best.

A Businessman's Morning Prayer

2009-06-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

Dear God, I celebrate your presence with thanksgiving, and with my whole heart praise You this morning. I greet You with love, Creator of the universe, Spirit who strives with the chaos of the world. The power of your love & wisdom reaches so far that nothing & no one is beyond your help & healing.

Help me to listen to your voice, soften my heart & open my mind morning after morning. When I listen to your voice deep within me, I shall know the wisdom & mercy of your love. I shall see You as rest, relief & upliftment for many people who suffer from poverty, inequality, injustice & indifference in my country & throughout the world.

You are the giver of life & the owner of the earth, entrusting managers & investors with treasures, talents & time, holding us accountable for our actions & decisions, judging us all in your faithfulness, quelling our envy & greed.

Strengthen my commitment to the practice of building the nation, equalizing opportunity & creating long-term value for society. May your Spirit inspire me to pursue & preserve fellowship & friendship with socially responsible mentors & peers in the world of business, trade & industry. I ask this with trust in your fidelity & mercy. Amen.