Sadness and satisfaction. Two feelings struggle within me as our institute turns over the feeding program at Nazareno Chapel in Payatas to the local parish. Sadness because it means closing the book on our earliest social program there, one that has occupied my time and attention for some 25 years.…
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The community of Loyola House of Studies was gathering for a special outdoor supper when we were shocked into silence by the booming of a great bell in the tower over our heads, tolling slowly the nine rings of “De Profundis,” the Church’s prayer for the dead. Fr. Francisco Montecastro…
Leave a CommentToday’s complex and competitive markets offer many opportunities for innovation. Two Sundays ago, the Inquirer’s Talk of the Town featured ways to produce consumer products from three coconut byproducts—candies and desserts with coco sugar, buko juice and sports drink from coconut water, and various food preparations using coconut oil. Such…
Leave a CommentAfter Tropical Storm “Ondoy” wreaked havoc in Metro Manila in 2009, the poor living along its rivers and waterways have to endure anxiety over government’s repeated calls for the relocation of all informal settlements on these so-called danger zones. Authorities say the settlements are “blocking” the natural flow of water…
Leave a CommentMy friend John Gibson graduated from high school in 1942, as the United States was throwing itself into World War II. He thought of entering the Jesuits, but his parents objected—fearing that he might be sent as a missionary to the far-off Philippines. John was not sure either about his…
Leave a CommentOne warm evening in Lent, at Mass at Our Lady of X in my favorite blue sundress, I was roused from devout drowsiness when the priest—my favorite canon lawyer—uttered the words “dress code.” The dress code for Catholic Masses may have been on his mind because the Inquirer recently reported…
Leave a Comment“So there are also squatters in Korea?” an urban poor mother and leader sitting beside me quipped in Filipino while looking at photos of so-called “vinyl houses” being flashed on the screen. (Some 4,900 families evicted from various places in Seoul occupy vacant spaces without permission and build shelters made…
Leave a CommentIt takes more than presidential will and money to make a propoor initiative succeed. Apart from having an efficient and honest implementing bureaucracy that understands the purpose of the reform, innovation is a major ingredient of success. Without it, implementing institutions are bound to magnify what is wrong with the…
Leave a CommentThe “Three Kings,” or more properly the “wise men,” had a problem. Their study of the stars had told them that a great king had been born in Judea, and they had set out on a long and dangerous journey, following his star, to find him and do him honor.…
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But doesn’t the CBCP support responsible parenthood?
The Catholic debate over fertility regulation is now so muddled that even the bishops seem to have become confused. The day after President Aquino declared in his State of the Nation Address that his administration would promote responsible parenthood, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa was reported to have said: “We…