Martyrdom is cinematic

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

When I learned of the killing of Italian missionary Fr. Fausto Tentorio on Oct. 17 in Arakan Valley in North Cotabato, my thoughts went back to the killing of Fr. Tulio Favali in 1985. I still have the human rights postcard that shows a bloodied Favali, his brain splattered on the ground.

Father Tentorio, 59, fondly called Father Pops, was the third priest belonging to the Pontifical Institute for the Foreign Missions to be gunned down in Mindanao. He was laid to rest yesterday, with some 10,000 people seeing him off, many of them lumad (indigenous people) whom he served for more than 30 years. There were many stirring images there that, I hope, might someday inspire someone to make a movie or documentary of it. So unchoreographed, but so cinematic.

And so my thoughts also went back to the 1986 movie “The Mission,” directed by Roland Joffé, which I had watched several times. I loved the movie so much that I had to get the movie’s sound track by Ennio Moriconne. A few days ago I dug up my 1986 Sunday Inquirer Magazine write-up on the movie (“The Mission: International cinema’s last dinosaur”) which had Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons in major roles as Jesuit missionaries defending the oppressed South American natives. Martyrdom was to be their crowning glory.

I also dug up my 1985 Favali-related magazine article which was about the diary of Fr. Peter Geremia, the real target of Favali’s killers. Then I went over my 2005 column on Sr. Dorothy Stang who was killed in Brazil for defending the indigenous tribes and the Amazon wilderness from exploiters.

Going over my own written stuff on bloody events of the distant past was perhaps my way of contemplating the recent bloody events. There have been so many this October—the assassination of Father Tentorio, the mass killing of soldiers in Basilan by Moro rebels despite the on-going peace talks, murders, rapes, family massacres, deaths caused by environmental disasters. And we’re just a few days away from All Saints’/All Souls’ Day when we honor our dear departed. October is Indigenous Peoples Month.

With Father Tentorio in my thoughts, I read what I had written a quarter of a century ago on a movie on martyrdom. Hmm, I thought, I could have written this just yesterday.

“The music, the song and the gaze of each native bear the mark of sadness for the plundering of the land…Our feet are calloused by the long journeys we have made, fleeing from the invader each time he has driven us into a corner.”

That was part of the message of the indigenous people of Colombia to Pope John Paul II during his visit there, I wrote. This painful and damning modern-day epistle could very well have been written by the Guarani Indians of 18th century Paraguay to the Pope of that time, when the Indians, along with Jesuit missionaries caught in a political maelstrom not of their own making, were driven out of mission territory and butchered by men who believed that might is right. This is what the film “The Mission” is all about.

Winner of the Palm d’Or Award for Best Film, “The Mission” tells us about the politics of greed and enslavement. It also gives us a hint that liberation theology, so frowned upon by despots in scarlet robes and military uniforms, was not invented in the 20th century but rose out of the blood spilled by the poor and the dispossessed—the “anawim.”

As one watches the drama that unfolded 200 years ago one can feel its contemporary implications. Today, tribal or indigenous groups are still subjected to the same degradation, they are still used as pawns in power conflicts, and the selfless women and men of God who work and live with them are themselves dismissed as incorrigible recalcitrants who got lost with their sheep.

Fathers Mendoza (De Niro) and Gabriel (Irons) choose the path less trodden, but when the time of reckoning comes, each one chooses a separate way without abandoning the flock. Mendoza chooses to fight with arms alongside the Guarani Indians while Gabriel opts for prayer and Guarani people power to stop the invading forces.

Both prove powerless before the mighty soldiers. The mission goes up in flames, the Indians and the missionaries are all but wiped out. And all that are left are mountains trembling with verdant rage, all that remains is the eternal hum of the forest which must continue to nurture the young who are left behind.

Newsweek’s Jack Kroll called “The Mission” a “sweeping spectacle about one of history’s great betrayals.”

Hic sunt dracones. “There Be Dragons.” Betrayal and death are also themes in this latest Joffé movie which was inspired by events in the life of St. Josemaria Escriva, Spanish priest and founder of the Opus Dei. But more than betrayal, there is love, forgiveness and redemption being played out against the awesome backdrop of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. (Gorgeous production design, I must say.)

The movie is part true-to-life (Escriva’s and the Opus Dei’s early days) and part fiction (the life and battles of his childhood bosom friend Manolo Torres). Their adult lives unfold separately but their paths would later cross dangerously a number of times in the battlefields.

“There Be Dragons” is a drama woven around the young Escriva (Charlie Cox) but not necessarily centered on him. The movie is bigger than him, which is a good thing, otherwise it would look like an Opus Dei hard-sell. It is a story of war—within and without—with no one left unscathed, Escriva included.

It is a story within a story, spun out of a journalist-biographer’s desire to know the truth about Escriva who was a friend of his dying father’s. The flashbacks begin. Deadly secrets explode like bombs. An even more stunning surprise waits in the end.

“There Be Dragons” will be in theaters next week.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

Readers write

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Rarely do I use readers’ letters in this space. Readers send feedback via the Inquirer online, email, snail mail, text or to my blogsite. I get surprised when a piece that I thought would not get much reader reaction—whether negative or positive—would elicit reflective feedback, sometimes laden with personal insights.

Last month I wrote about Welcome House and the Heart of Mary Villa, both run by the Good Shepherd Sisters, and their services for “the last, the least and the lost” (“For PCSO to know,” Sept. 29). Both were in Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s list of “endangered” service-oriented institutions.

Joan Orendain, a known PR practitioner, wrote me a letter: “How Welcome House welcomed my two little boys and me in 1974! Yes, we were in crisis.

“Lucky, 4, became Sr. Catalina Santos’ shadow, following her around all day, helping her water the plants (the floor got it more than the plant). But Sister Catá (the daughter of the Armed Forces Judge Advocate General) never complained…

“TJ, 6, helped the cook in the kitchen. My bosses, commissioned by the World Bank to do feasibility studies on Philippine highways to be reconstructed, brought my typewriter to Welcome House. There, I put the reports together, and in my spare time, was comforted by Sr. Emma Alday, a guidance counselor and the gentlest of souls.

“All the other women at the crisis center were pregnant and unwed, except one who was married to an activist who had gone into hiding and left the pregnant lady and her two-year-old son homeless. We were one another’s support group, bolstered by the Good Shepherd Sisters who fed and kept us whole.

“My sons were in such a loving atmosphere that they never complained about missing friends or not seeing the outside world during our over a month’s stay at Welcome House. They must have thought we were on an extended holiday in that nurturing atmosphere.

“It’s such a wrench to think that the PCSO has withdrawn funding for such an important institution as Welcome House. We have to pray PCSO will have a change of heart.”

From Charlie Falquerabao: “I have read your column “One woman, 15 pregnancies, 12 children”. You know what? My family has the same story as the family of Yoling. My mother had 13 pregnancies and 10 children. I was raised in the very remote province of Mindoro Oriental where life is so simple. My father is a farmer and my mother is a plain housewife. There is no electricity, no vehicles, no cell phones, no gadgets, no apples, no burgers, etc…

“The weird thing was that while I was in the middle of your story I found myself crying. I didn’t know the reason why but my tears kept on pouring. Just want to share, “pinaiyak mo ako eh (because you made me cry).”

From an assistant school principal: “Your article… was like a narration of our yaya’s life story. When I read your article, it moved me. My yaya is almost Yoling’s age and she has 11 living children. She started giving birth at age 14. Her youngest child is five years old. She has been with me since my oldest child, now 11, was born. My kids really love her and call her Nanay.

“In the 11 years that she has been yaya, she has disappeared on us maybe four times; the longest was when she gave birth to her youngest child.

“She was also beaten up by her husband. There was a time when her husband would stalk her in front of our house. From then on she was forbidden to stay at our house. She would come to work at 6 a.m. and go home at 8 p.m. I pay her a salary equivalent to two maids because that is how much we love her and how hard she works for us.

“A month ago, one of her adolescent sons was confined in the Mental Hospital because he was blacking out in class—the effect of drug abuse and bad company. Nanay didn’t show up for three weeks.

“I asked her once if she wanted to have ligation and I will gladly pay for it but she said that her husband wouldn’t hear of it. She still menstruates, and the doctor told her that she shouldn’t get pregnant anymore because her life would be at risk. She is forty-ish but she looks late 50-ish.”

This letter from Dr. Ma. Cristina Licaycay-Gonzales was not addressed to me, but to an alumni e-group. “I belong to UST Med Batch 1987 and I am a medical officer in a provincial hospital’s OB-Gyne department. Yoling’s story is not unusual here in our province. The problem is women like her usually belong to the lower income bracket. I’m happy to say though that our province, through its RHUs/LGUs, is doing everything to look into such problems.

“But sometimes the women won’t even bother to go to the local health centers for check up even if it’s free. The midwives have to track them one by one through house visits which are taxing. Our minority group, the Mangyans, live in the mountains!

“Then come delivery time. NSDs for grandmultiparity are not covered by Philhealth even if some municipalities have their own version of the health insurance. There are times when the patient has only P10 in her wallet! Sometimes, not even a penny. It’s your duty as a government doctor to provide EVERYTHING for her delivery—from the IV fluids to the disposable diaper! I am always praying that these patients are not for Cesarean section or would not have uterine atony! That would surely mean headaches in producing meds or blood for transfusion.

“I’ve been doing this for the past 22 years since I passed the board exams. My work may not be financially rewarding but the sense of fulfillment is priceless! In January 2012 my class will be celebrating its silver homecoming. I may not be as well-off as most of my batchmates but I can hold my head up high and say that I’ve experienced much in helping the least of my brethren. Go USTE! ”

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

One woman, 15 pregnancies, 12 children

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

She is 42 years old, has had 15 pregnancies, two of them miscarriages and one induced abortion. She has 12 children who are alive, the eldest of them aged 26 and the youngest about four or five. She has three grandchildren, two of them children of single mothers.

I met Yoling (not her real name) last week. A friend brought Yoling with her from a town in Rizal where both their families reside. Yoling stayed overnight in Quezon City while waiting for someone to pick her up. She was going to a home somewhere outside Metro Manila where she will be working as a maid for a monthly pay of P2,500.

When I learned that Yoling has 12 children I asked her if I we could talk. She said yes right away. I told her I was a journalist writing for the Inquirer. I also said that she must have a very interesting life and a good story to tell. Could I write about her? Could I take a photo of her? Could she tell me her name and her children’s? She said yes to all without shyness or hesitation, but I also told her that it was best that I withheld her identity.

I asked my questions with utmost respect. Yoling was serious but not guarded, she was not the very talkative type but she answered questions straightforwardly.

Yoling is a real person. She is not a fictitious character or a composite of so many women.

What got me interested in her was her being a mother, at a young age of 42, to 12 children. And that she was leaving all of them, her husband Narding (not his real name) included, to work far from their home. Narding, 57, has tuberculosis and cannot earn a living.

Yoling and Narding raised their big family in a rather secluded rural part of a Rizal town. They have been caretakers of a piece of land, about four hectares, that has not been developed. Yoling sometimes did domestic work for the landowner’s family while Narding did basic carpentry for people nearby.

The two had very little income. The land was not very good for rice or vegetable farming but the couple did try to make it yield food for their family.

“I was born in Naga (Camarines Sur),” Yoling narrated. “I finished Grade 3. At an early age I ran away from home.” She went to Pampanga and worked as a domestic helper for several years. There she met Narding who was then working in her employers’ rice mill. In no time, they became a couple.

Rizal province was where they headed for and began raising a family. The two were never married legally but Yoling said many years ago a pastor from a religious denomination married them. Yoling clarified though that Narding had been previously married to someone and had in fact four children from that union, and 10 grandchildren as well.

Oh, she added, Narding had beaten her up a few times, but when she fought back, he backed off and that was the end of it.

The children came one after the other, Yoling said. “Kung minsan ako ang nagpaanak sa sarili ko.” (Sometimes I just delivered the baby by myself.) That was when the hilot (midwife) came too late or when there was no one to assist her.

Yoling volunteered the information that although she has 12 living children, she has had 15 pregnancies. Three did not make it. One of them—maybe the 10th, Yoling cannot now recall exactly—was lost because of induced abortion. Of her 12 living children, one—maybe the ninth—was given up for adoption.

And how did she come to know about an abortionist? “A neighbor led me to one who lived not far from our place,” Yoling answered.

And what was the procedure like? Were instruments inserted into her? Did she have to take pills or drink concoctions? None of those, Yoling answered. All the abortionist did was to press on her abdomen, on the area where the uterus was. She pressed hard and long. The pain was so intense Yoling almost passed out. The pressure was meant to suffocate and kill the baby. The result was not immediate.

Soon after, the landowner, not knowing what Yoling went through, called for her to do the laundry. The physical exertion took its toll.

A few days later, Yoling bled and a fetus came out of her. “It was a boy,” she said sadly. Yoling hemorrhaged and was rushed to the hospital. “I was 50-50,” she said, hastening to narrate her near-death experience (NDE). How she felt, what she heard and saw in that divide between life and the afterlife. And how she was sent back. (Not enough space here for Yoling’s NDE.)

“I stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks,” she recalled. “My husband was angry and he tried to track down the abortionist but he could not find her.”

The experience left Yoling weak, but never too weak to have a couple more babies. Now 42, Yoling could have several more. She still menstruates but her husband, she said, is no longer up to it. She sounded relieved. Narding is tubercular and nearing 60.

But how did her family become so big? we asked. Two months after delivering the baby, the baby-making resumed as usual and without let-up, she said. In the midst of a huge brood? I asked. “We have a separate room,” she answered sheepishly.

Did she breastfeed? Hardly, Yoling said. What formula did she feed her infants? “Milkmaid,” was her stunning answer. That was how she called condensed milk, the sweet, sticky ingredient used for desserts.

No way her husband would use condoms. No ligation for her, no vasectomy for him. Pills, she tried to get from the health center but she was being asked to pay for them. What about natural family planning (NFP). Yung pagpipigil, was how I said it. “Yung calendar?” she asked. Yoling knew about NFP but said they couldn’t quite follow it.

Was there anyone from the government, the NGOs or the churches who, upon beholding their life of penury, had seriously helped them plan their family and for their children’s future?

No one.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

Mattress peddlers, NPA hostages

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

A heart-rending sight for me is that of a lone man carrying a whole bed or aparador on his back and walking the streets of the city, hoping to sell the homemade furniture, be relieved of the load on his back and go home with some money. A Philippine version of the Carrying of the Cross, indeed. I see this every now and then, and I wonder if bad elements would even think of divesting such peddlers of their wares and money like they do to taxi drivers, pedestrians and students.

This thought played on my mind as I went over the case of the Initao 6, homemade mattress peddlers from Initao, Misamis Oriental, who were abducted by the communist New People’s Army (NPA). The men left home on Aug. 10 and were said to be headed for the Bukidnon uplands and even stopped by a fiesta in the hope of maximizing their sales. They are James Mabaylan, 60, driver; Nelson Bagares, 46; Segundino Dailo Jr., 46; Ernesto Callo Jr., 34; Julieto Sarsaba, 30; and Ronal Boiles, 28. Four are married, Sarsaba and Boiles are single.

The abduction became publicly known when a press conference was held at the residence of Bukidnon Archbishop Antonio Ledesma sometime in early September. On September 13 the NPA under Commander Parago in Paquibato district (bordering Bukidnon and Davao) owned up to the abduction and stated the reason: the mattress peddlers were allegedly spying for the military.

The families of the hostages had sought the help of Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte but he reportedly declined to intercede on the hostages’ behalf. His reason: he was a resource person of the National Democratic Front (of which the NPA is part). But there are those who have speculated that Duterte, known to be a persuasive politician, did not want to see a repeat of the failed release of jail guards whose freedom was reportedly promised to him by NDF chair Luis Jalandoni.

So the Initao 6 are still out there, in forests primeval perhaps, without their mattresses to sleep on. Or did the NPA abductors seize the mattresses, too? Might these have contained deadly weapons in them?

I got an update on the Initao 6 from Jurgette Honculada, a gender and labor rights advocate from Zamboanga who serves as a member of the Government of the Philippines Peace Panel (presently headed by human rights lawyer Alexander Padilla) in talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF. So-called peace talks have been on-and-off for the last 24 years. And though dwindling in number, the CPP/NPA/NDF can still wreak havoc in a dramatic way, like the recent attacks on mining operations in Surigao del Norte.

Should these talks just continue for as long as it takes? Or do we want to see a denouement of some sort? (In plain language, maghalo ang balat sa tinalupan.)

On the subject of mattresses. Some 15 years ago, a group of enterprising young men from Davao, Bukidnon and Davao City tried their hand at making homemade coco coir mattresses . These men later married and settled in Barangay Tubigan, Initao, which became a center of mattress production.

Mattress making is the main source of livelihood of more than one-third of families in the barangay. Children help convert coconut husk into fiber through the pagkuskos method. Each mattress contains around 10 kilos of coir. The women make mattress covers from out of sacks. The men do the carpentry and assembly, as well as look for customers.

Here are details that might interest supporters of community-based livelihood programs. Mattress production in Initao increased with credit from cooperatives. A loan of P40,000 to P45,000 can fund a team of six persons (driver, producers, peddlers, canvassers) who will travel to sell. They load as many as 50 mattresses onto a vehicle and take them to as far as Caraga, Davao, Cotabato and Zamboanga . They go during or after harvest time when farming families have money to spend. A mattress could sell for P1,000 to P3,000. The person who takes out the loan could go home with a net of P7,000 or less if the trip stretches to month. The rest get their share, too.

The Initao 6 just went out there to sell mattresses. Now they are hostages.

Last week, a letter of appeal on their behalf was sent to the NDF Negotiating Panel based in the Netherlands, through its secretariat in Cubao. The letter was signed by Misamis Oriental Gov. Oscar S. Moreno, Vice Governor Norris Babiera, Archbishop Ledesma and five other bishops (Catholic and Protestant), and Paul Paraguya of Balay Mindanaw Foundation.

“We are appealing, in behalf of the families of the above-named individuals, for their immediate release and the peaceful resolution of this unfortunate incident. These individuals are marginal vendors who earn their living by selling homemade foams and mattresses, made by their community-based livelihood projects… Based on our own investigation, they have never been involved in any unlawful undertaking that would have warranted their prosecution before any courts of law, nor have they been tagged as military or police informers.

“Their families pray … that they be released unharmed in the spirit of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. A single day in captivity is almost an eternity for their families who desperately need and depend on them for daily subsistence and fatherly love… The agony, stress and anxiety brought about by the incident are too much for their families to bear… We … share in both our government’s and the NDFP’s quest for a principled resolution of the problem of insurgency.”

Have mercy on the mattress peddlers.

                                                                      * * *

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Support ICanServe’s projects by buying items at their stall at Rockwell Mall (concourse level, near Rustan’s) in Makati. Open on all Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of October.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

'Ina': What price family, faith, love

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Love, commitment. The self, comfort, material possessions. Family. Occasionally, these are put to the test. Which will endure? At what price?

Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s latest film, “Ina: Ikaw ang Pag-ibig,” does not beg for obvious answers as it follows what looks like separate journeys of individuals whose lives are inexorably linked with one another. Although familial, emotional and spiritual ties exist among them, each has a road to follow, a different drummer to heed.

Then there is “Ina,” the venerated image of Our Lady of Peñafrancia who is known for her miraculous intercessions, and who is at the heart of the movie.

Vangie (Ina Feleo) is a single mom to Gabby (Yogo Singh), her young son with boyfriend Joey (Jomari Yllana), an OB-Gyne who keeps pressing her to finally marry him so they could have a family. Dr. Joey is caring, committed and affectionate but Vangie who works in advertising is afraid to commit.

Vangie lives with mom (Shamaine Centerera), who looks after Gabby, because her absentee dad (Noni Buencamino) has been working abroad for years and is ostensibly not coming home soon.

Vangie has a pro bono sideline radically different from her commercial productions. She’s working on-and-off on a documentary on the Virgin of Peñafrancia.

Fr. Johnny (Marvin Agustin) is Vangie’s only brother, who takes his priestly vocation to heart, braving sun and rain and driving his motorcycle through dirt roads to reach his flock in remote places. Work and stress take their toll and he comes down with leukemia.

At this point, the Cruz family must either hang together or pull apart. Family problems, medical procedures, financial woes and spiritual questions surge on them like a tsunami.

Son in tow, Vangie travels to Bicol to visit the Virgin of Peñafrancia, whom she only knows through her video footage. They quietly slip into the small chapel where the image is usually kept after the feast. Vangie seeks out an aunt who turns out to be the keeper of the virgin’s miraculous cape, and returns to Manila with it.

Fr. Johnny is close to dying. A risky bone marrow transplant could spell the difference. Vangie is the only matching source for bone marrow. Will she or won’t she?

An intense moment: Vangie confesses to her ailing brother in the hope that the sacrament would result in healing for him, for herself and her family. She spills all.

By this time, the “Ina” that Vangie used to know only as the image on her video screen has come alive in her family who is drawn closer together. But there are loads of material and interior baggage they’d have to give up. Will there be healing for Fr. Johnny and the rest of them? Where is the miracle? You will have to watch the movie.

Weaving footage of a true-to-life event (the Peñafrancia feast) into a fictional feature film takes a lot of creativity. Diaz-Abaya and her crew braved the surging crowds to film this once-in-a-century event.

The budget-challenged indie film is a celebration of the 300th year of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, whose week-long September feast draws hundreds of thousands of devotees, spiritual seekers and tourists to Naga City where she is enshrined. It was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres under Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legazpi.

“Ina,” says its director, was no ordinary project. Even while battling cancer, she forged on to do what she now considers the film closest to her heart. The multi-awarded director has done many groundbreaking and socially-relevant movies (“Rizal,” “Muro-ami,” and “Bagong Buwan” among many), but “Ina” has a special place in her heart.

“It could be my swan song,” she quips. “I had no idea if I could see it through. If I didn’t, there was [director] Laurice Guillen or Olive Lamasan, both Marian devotees, to finish it.”

But Marilou Diaz-Abaya and her “Ina” came through with flair and flourish. A miracle. Viva la Virgen!