The increasing divisiveness of our politics has been thrown into sharp relief this election season. Aside from the constant mudslinging of politicians, it seems so difficult now for people of different political stripes to have real, meaningful conversations with each other, whether in public or private. This is part of…
Comments closedTag: Extra Judicial Killings
Watch out! The train is coming!” yelled the crowd of urban poor clustered around the railroad tracks by the España station. It was Holy Week and seven cross-bearers were kneeling on the tracks to protest government policies threatening their already precarious existence. They scrambled to get out of the train’s…
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After that terrible week in August in which the police killed 81 drug suspects, a Roman Catholic friend announced she was about to “excommunicate” herself from her parish. Bishop Honesto Ongtioco had told parishes in his diocese of Cubao to toll their bells each night in memory of those killed…
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LORD HEAL OUR LAND (cf. 2 Chronicles 7:14) Our brothers and sisters in Christ: Kian, Carl, Reynaldo…they were young boys, enjoying life, loving sons of parents who doted on them. Now an entire nation knows them by name because their lives have been snuffed out so cruelly, their dreams and…
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24 August 2017 TO THE WHOLE PROVINCE Coming Together in the Power of the Spirit Statement of the Philippine Province Jesuits on Fighting the Evil of Illegal Drugs It is with deep concern for the welfare of our nation that the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus joins His…
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About a year ago, on May 9, 2016, the Filipino people–or at least, 16 million of them, about 39 percent of the electorate–entrusted our nation to a strange shepherd. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte came to power promising to protect the innocent by spilling the blood of the guilty: criminals, especially…
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In the last 10 months, over 9,000 Filipinos, mostly poor, have perished in circumstances believed to be associated with the government’s campaign against illegal drugs. More than a quarter of the killings have been carried out by police against an unusual number of drug suspects reported to have resisted apprehension.…
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JJCICSI joined the annual “Kalbaryo ng Maralita (Calvary of the Poor)” staged on Holy Tuesday, April 11, by various urban poor groups with their partner NGOs, the Urban Poor Associates (UPA) and Community Organizers Multiversity (COM). Led by urban poor community members carrying crosses representing the issue adversely affecting the sector, thousands of participants marched from Plaza Miranda to the…
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Learning from our collective trauma
Lawmakers defending the anti-terrorism bill have reacted to what they perceive to be exaggerated fears among the bill’s critics. The fears could be exaggerated, but they make a lot of sense coming from a traumatized people. I do not refer to the trauma of martial law to which a number…