‘Commentary’ Archives
Fidelity, commitment, freedom, love
I KNOW these are four big and stretchable words that can accept an endless series of related concepts and interpretations, including the right and wrong ones. Nowadays, this phenomenon is gaining strength and popularity. Many are the words people speak that are increasingly high-sounding but empty and hollow as well. There’s a crying need now to clarify things, to pause and go slow if only to savor the many elements that go into these fat words and to get their proper contribution and [...]
Slaughter of the birds
“Stash that photo quick before the website is pulled down.” What photo? The “Massacre of the Birds,” answers Wild Bird Club of the Philippines’ Michael Lu. Grisly snapshots of shot birds, displayed on the Internet by the “Bacolod Air Rifle Hunting Club” and other groups, sparked the drive to muster 10,000 signatures to curb this slaughter. The petition “requests media to cover shocking activities of these bands, Lu explains. Public revulsion may prod government to enforce [...]
From Prima Donna’ to Pauper
“La Nina” unleashed flash floods throughout much of this deforested country. They were backdrop for the insistent call, by a Church-backed network, for President Aquino to impose a total ban on commercial logging. Logging licenses have become “façades for illegal logging,” claims the Save Sierra Network (SSN) Mr. Aquino should shred all logging licenses. Signed by Infanta Bishop Rolando Tria-Tirona, Laoag Bishop Sergio Utleg and 18 organization [...]
Rouges’ Damascus Moment?
President Benigno Aquino signed into law his first national budget. He stitched in “mandatory postings” provisions. Are we on the cusp of a good-governance initiative? Or a big bust? Like it or not, legislators must upload on Department of Budget and Management’s website, “details about their pork barrel spending,”, chairman of House appropriations committee Rep Joseph Abaya told Inquirer. The P1.645-trillion budget requires publishing data on fund releases, [...]
“No room in the inn”
(That’s the title that columnist Ron Rolheiser, gave to his latest Internet article the Nativity story. We tend to look askance at the innkeeper who told the tired couple from Nazareth of 100 percent occupancy that night. But do we tend to miss the more relevant truths? Read on — and Merry Christmas — JLM…) “Mary gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” [...]
“No room in the inn”
(That’s the title that columnist Ron Rolheiser, gave to his latest Internet article the Nativity story. We tend to look askance at the innkeeper who told the tired couple from Nazareth of 100 percent occupancy that night. But do we tend to miss the more relevant truths? Read on --- and Merry Christmas -- JLM…) “Mary gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” -- Luke In the [...]
Mid-advent at a hospice
(The Belen, at our neighborhood church, is almost done. Misa de Gallo started Thursday. More kids belt out off-key-carols at our door. It brought to mind an earlier column on an Advent tour in a slum hospice -- JLM) Mid-Advent found me driving down a humid Tondo side road to reach a hospice. What’s that got to do with Charles Dickens’ 1843 novel: “A Christmas Carol”? We were to hand over a letter for a Missionary of Charity sister. Many call them, “Mother Teresa nuns”. [...]
Making our love abiding
IN fact, we have to make our love eternal, not just abiding. This is how love should be and would be if it manages to run its full course. And thus the task we have at hand is to give all our mind, heart and strength for the attainment of such love, since the road to that goal is filled with snares and dangers. Abiding and eternal love can only be a fruit of grace, of the love God himself so willingly and abundantly shares with us. It is the love mentioned in Christ’s new commandment that [...]
The polite word
“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong,” Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote. Wait. Doesn’t that fit President Benigno Aquino. III’s waffling on the Freedom of Information bill? He oscillated from fervid “cross-my-heart” support to “aw-shucks” back pedaling. In contrast, Corazon and Benigno Aquino Jr. stood, without ifs and buts, for transparency in government. Did it ever occur to P-Noy that his waffling smudges the” [...]
Be consistent to your faith
WE have to appeal to everyone, especially to our politicians and everybody else who occupy positions of leadership and influence in society, to please be consistent to your faith. Faith is not something to show off only when one is in church and in religious activities. It has to be lived all the time regardless of whether one is engaged in business or in politics or in sports or in the arts, etc. It can not be treated like a hat or a coat that we wear outside but take off when we are [...]
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