In a book launched recently at the Ateneo de Manila University is a black-and-white photograph that brings me back to another time of my life. It is of veteran peace activist Edmundo Garcia, then a Jesuit scholastic and leader of a newly formed movement called “Lakasdiwa,” speaking before a huge…
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Heart-rending pictures and stories of the flood victims in Northern Mindanao become even more so amid the lights and laughter, good food and family gatherings of the Christmas season. In my case, they also bring back recollections of 30 years ago. I was having lunch in a Roman restaurant with…
Leave a Comment“What do I own and what owns me?” I kept repeating these words to myself as I walked around Quiapo one Saturday afternoon recently. I had arrived early for a Mass I was supposed to concelebrate at the Basilica of the Black Nazarene, with nearly an hour to spare. I…
Leave a Comment“Write about Manny Pacquiao,” Val said to me on the morning of the last Pacquiao-Marquez showdown. We were navigating streets emptied of avid adherents of the “Pambansang Kamao.” Val probably wished he too were parked in front of the TV set at home, instead of driving his wife Bang to…
Leave a Comment“What goes around comes around.” Some years ago, two rather burly-looking men, escorted by a young Filipina, were in my office making a pitch for “responsible mining.” They represented an association of international mining companies. Apparently I had been identified as an “unfriendly” who might be won over. After listening…
Leave a CommentIn the ongoing debate on the reproductive health bill, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile challenged the figures on induced abortion in the Philippines being cited by proponents of the bill. A good question, since the number of 500,000 or more has echoed from columnist to columnist and activist to activist…
Leave a CommentGrace moments are a Catholic obligation. I recently fulfilled that obligation amply by having two within three days: one in a bookstore, one in bed. The first occurred as I shopped for a gift for a little girl. Browsing the children’s books by Filipinos, I endured pages and pages of…
Leave a CommentAfternoon light bathed the spacious interior of the Church of Our Lady of X. A new batch of Eucharistic ministers stood before the altar, quietly waiting to be blessed by the parish priest and the mostly middle-class congregation. As I gazed at them, stiff in crisp barongs, somnolent in the…
Leave a CommentType in “pornography” on Google, and you will learn that there are at least 48,600,000 entries under that head. Under “XXX” there were a mind-boggling 1,250,000,000 entries as of Aug. 27. Veritable cesspools lie under our homes, ready to bubble out of our computers at the click of a mouse.…
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What difference can a Manila archbishop make?
Giddiness is not a mood one associates with the clergy. But my sacerdotal spies tell me the mood in some religious communities was positively giddy when Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila, declared that the Vatican had named as his successor Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Imus. Enthusiasm…