“IF I were to call you a ‘cultured individual,’ would I be praising or insulting you?” This is one of the first questions I pose to college students in my Introduction to Sociology-Anthropology classes at the Ateneo de Manila University. Most students, of course, correctly identify this as a compliment…
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While in Jakarta for the ASEAN meeting, the President Aquino announced that the government plans to make available 1.5 million hectares of agricultural lands to be leased to 560,000 Metro Manila informal settlers. (Inquirer, 5/9/11) The news item drew reactions ranging from surprise to disbelief. Evidently it was a serious proposition.…
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The violent demolition inside the Laperal compound in Guadalupe, Makati was not a simple clash between informal settlers (often characterized as law breakers) and the local government, supposedly the implementers of law. Many sympathized with the residents left homeless–first by a fire, then by the local government’s demolition crew. On the…
Leave a CommentAs I watched Christ’s faithful gather symbolically in the Upper Room on Holy Thursday, around Calvary’s cross on Good Friday, and at the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, a wave of joy flowed over me. Swept up like a chip of wood on the surface of a boiling wave by…
Leave a CommentTo put me off a teaching career, Mom would say: “Those who can’t, teach.” The adage took on new meaning when Sister Gloria taught us sex education in high school. I salute her for grace under fire. We greeted with mocking incredulity her lessons on the mysteries of reproduction. By then…
Leave a CommentIn the second week of Lent, as Catholics moved into their preparation for Easter, the Church asked us to reflect on the Lord’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We recall the story of the rich man dressed in the finest clothes, dining sumptuously every day, and the poor…
Leave a CommentBishop Teodoro Bacani had almost 250 priests in stitches with the following anecdote. A religious sister stayed for a few weeks in an urban poor community. With each scene of abject poverty she encountered, she would inevitably say, “Kawawa naman!” (What a pity!) Stumbling upon a naked, soot-covered child, she…
Leave a CommentDad was instinctively Catholic. He had scant catechism as a child. But while other boys played at being soldiers, he played at being a priest. He might have become one had he gone to a Catholic school. Instead he sent his children to Catholic schools, and improved his own Catholic…
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Early in the morning of Feb. 22, 1986, Bishop Francisco Claver, S.J. was called upon to put his money where his mouth was. Claver had been the main author of the bishops’ post-election statement which declared that in their considered judgment “the polls were unparalleled in the fraudulence of their…
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Microfinance’s greater rewards
It is so easy to go into microfinance. With a small amount of capital, minimum policies set on the loanable amount that can be as low as P3,000 per client, interest rate, period of payment, mode of regular repayments, loan security which need not be hard collateral, savings or capital…