In God we trust (and also in stocks)

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

Vintage Bo Sanchez discourse: 

“Why is Facebook so big today? 

“Because deep in our hearts, our most basic need, found in our DNA, written in our genetic code, is the need to belong to a community, a friendship, a network, a club, a family. 

“Forgive me for being flat-out corny, downright mushy, but whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not, you have a desperate need for LOVE. 

“You were born with it. 

“Everybody has it. 

“Male or female, you need love.” 

So why do people follow him on Facebook, in public events and in various media through his blogs, books and other publications? Why do thousands here and abroad listen to his preaching and follow his advice on how to pray, how to love God and neighbor, make things work and live happy, progressive and successful lives? 

The answer is simple: Sanchez says things simply and makes them look and sound easy. And most of all, he shows us why something-like making money, for example-could be good and godly. 

For “If God is with us, who can be against us?” 

Eugenio Isabelo Tomas Reyes Sanchez, a.k.a. Bo Sanchez “the preacher in blue jeans,” is not the fire-and-brimstone kind of preacher who shakes the ramparts to mesmerize followers. Unlike many breast-thumping Bible-quoters, he does not try to impress his audience by rattling off Biblical verses and scriptural passages from memory.  For him, one or two verses could be enough to fill a Feast. 

Bo’s own personal life could explain how the guy can speak to everyone like he finds God in their most mundane everyday concerns. 

Born on July 11, 1966 in Caloocan City to Eugenio and Pilar Sanchez, Bo is the youngest and only boy in a brood of six. He recalls with great humor how he was “the most ungifted kid in the whole wide world.” He was poor in math, among other things. But at a young age he opened himself to grace.

In his easy-to-read “My Conspiracy Theory: A Brief Autobiography at the Middle of my Life” Bo begins: “I wrote my first book at age 20. I led the first prayer meeting of the Light of Jesus Family at age 14. I began preaching at age 13. I had my conversion at age 12. I was toilet trained at age 1, but that has nothing to do with this book.”

It is amazing how Bo has been able to sum up his life story into a booklet of 97 pages. “Chapter 1: My Childhood: Being the Most Ungifted Kid in the Whole Wide World” is as hilarious as it is heart-tugging. “Chapter 2: My Conversion—How God Became More Real Than the President” is just as interesting.

But the whole point of his autobiography is his warning “that there is a conspiracy of grace at work in this universe and heaven is scheming to bless your life.”


Now 46, Bo has been married to Marowe for 14 years and has two sons, Benedict and Francis.  He is the author of 25 books, many of them best-sellers-that are inexpensive, easy to read and understand inspirational and how-to books. The preacher, Catholic lay evangelist and entrepreneur was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) in 2006.

“We now have 110 small Light of Jesus (LOJ) communities all over the world,” he delights in saying. “We want to have more Feasts all over.”

The Feasts are regular weekend gatherings that begin with a Mass, followed by inspired preaching and other sharing activities. Bo visits each LOJ group every chance he gets. LOJ Feasts are held in such diverse places as the US, Canada, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Australia and Hong Kong.

The founder of a spiritual movement and several charity institutions is careful to separate his spiritual life from the material, and is scrupulous about donations.

“I have been told to get an allowance like our other preachers but I declined,” he says. Contributions go directly to LOJ activities and projects such as the Feasts and their venues, two orphanages, a home for pregnant women in crisis, and Anawim, a home for the poor elderly, some of them abandoned. In Metro Manila, the Sunday Feasts are held at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Sunday Inquirer Magazine visited and featured Anawim, a sprawling haven of rest located in Rodriguez (Montalban), Rizal, some years back. Generous donors have made Anawim flourish to a point that the LOJ is planning to put up spiritual retreat facilities there, Bo reveals.

But Bo has no qualms about being in media.  “Media for the Soul” is LOJ’s foray into broadcast media, with Kerygma TV on IBC 13 and TV Maria, the Archdiocese of Manila’s cable channel.  There is also Gabay sa Bibliya sa Radyo on Veritas 846, Nakita Ko, Mustard TV and Inside the Fish Bowl, also on TV Maria.

LOJ’s Shepherd’s Voice Publications publishes K-FAM-Kerygma, a Catholic inspirational magazine, Fish (“the zany side of loving God”), All Stars and Mustard (“sowing seeds of fun and faith”)—all very youth oriented.

On the personal side, Bo has his home schooling project (with 200 enrollees), his books and other business investments. He also lectures on how to make money in the stock market. His book “My Maid Invests in the Stock Market and Why You Should Too” is the number 3 best-seller in National Bookstore’s Top 10, and can now be downloaded for free as an e-book (trulyrichclub.com).

He sees no contradiction between his good deeds and his business savvy.  “Do you think the stock market is for billionaires only? A lot of people think that way,” he says.

“I teach people how to be wealthy over time,” he adds, referring to his “How to Make Millions Through the Stock Market” seminar (see sidebar) that, he says, is not a get-rich quick scheme. Many people lose money in stocks, “but if you follow the specific investing method that I will teach you, you’ll be able to create your millions for your future.”

Misery and poverty, he says, should not be our lot. It should not be a choice between being poor and being corrupt. For Bo, there is such a thing as “holy money” just as there is “holy sex.” All for the glory of God.

So how did he come to this?

When he turned 30, Bo decided to plot his life’s direction.  He was an experienced preacher by then and joining the priesthood was an option. “I finished Philosophy at the Ateneo,” he says, adding that it was some kind of preparation in case this vocation was for him.

But, he adds. “It became clear that I should remain a lay (person). Priests focus on the spiritual. As a lay person I could show people how to be good Catholics in the world.”

Summing up his goal, he says, “I want to speak to the un-churched.”

Having decided that, Bo found himself falling in love with Marowe who was with the LOJ staff. Marriage and family, he realized, were indeed for him.

Looking at this happily fulfilled husband and father, one can easily forget that he had experienced sexual abuse as a child. It is something that he has mentioned a few times in his preaching to convince people that there is hope for healing, and that a person should not wallow in victimhood but instead strive to be happy.

But Bo does not rely mainly on personal experiences for his preaching. “I do research, I read books. I write down everything that I intend to say and this may take several hours. Then when I am out there preaching, I do not carry notes.” 

His life story is proof that “Grace happens every day,” he says. “Open yourself to extreme, excessive, extravagant grace.” 

If that’s not enough inspiration for you, you can get more of God’s “unique, inspiring, powerful, personalized message everyday” by signing up at www.GodWhispersClub.com. •


Four Rules for Getting Rich 

Brother Bo Sanchez never tires of quoting Proverbs 21:20 in the Bible: “Precious treasure remains in the house of the wise, but the fool consumes it.” 

Definitely no fools are Bo’s maids—Gina, Weng and Maricel—who have invested in the stock market and have since watched their investments grow. Hearing them rave about their earnings, Bo’s skeptical driver bought stocks as well and is now convinced that his boss’ “The Truly Rich Club” is for real.

The four helpers’ good fortune is an affirmation of Bo’s belief that everyone ought to be rich-not only spiritually, but also materially. And the Catholic preacher in blue jeans unabashedly tells one and all that there is a right way of doing it. For money is not evil; it could, in fact, bring much good.

Bo’s book “My Maid Invests in the Stock Market” is a runaway best-seller. Just as numerous as the readers of his books are the active participants in his regular weekend spiritual Feasts here and abroad.

Many of those who heeded Bo’s Bible-based spiritual exhortations are now as gung-ho about achieving material wealth, while those who were initially attracted to his talks on material prosperity have begun working on their spiritual lives as well.

But Bo does not only preach or write about material wealth; he actually shows people how to do it through well-attended seminars, where financial experts walk wide-eyed beginners through the step by step process of making millions.

Bo’s “How to Make Millions Through the Stock Market” seminar two weeks ago at the Philippine International Convention Center drew about a thousand participants.  Coaching them on the so-called easy investment plan (EIP) were experts from, and the head of, online stockbroker Col Financial.  A disclaimer from Bo: He is a believer of Col Financial, but does not work for it.

Not a get-rich scheme, the seminar was about investing “the right way to create your millions for the future.”   To do this would require discipline and resolve as wealth happens “over time,” the participants learned.

This is not about the frenzied buying and selling of stocks, nor gambling-style trading and hard-to-decipher figures and graphs, Bo said. It’s not about trading to make a fast buck but long-term investing; there is a world of a difference, he added.

Mid-lifers and senior citizens who listened to the talk are now asking: “Why didn’t anyone tell us about this when we were in our twenties or thirties?” Parents who put in and lost their money in educational plans that went pffft could very well ask the same question. But it’s not too late, if the financial coaches are to be believed.

The gospel of EIP is about investing in publicly-owned or Philippine Stock Exchange-listed companies, thus participating in their growth and earnings. The investor makes money through price appreciation and dividends. Investing this way is a hedge against inflation.

At the seminar, one learned new terms and stock market jargon like peso cost averaging and strategic average method, current price, buy below price and target price. Presented were four rules in making money through EIP in the stock market, or ways to accumulate, upon retirement, P10 million (or much more) that one cannot earn through one’s savings in the bank.

Here are the four rules to getting rich through the EIP:

1. Invest small amounts (P1,000 and up) at regular times (say, weekly , monthly, or quarterly) without fail for 20 years or more.
2. Invest even when there is a crisis.
3. Invest only in giants.
4. Invest in a number of giants.

Other tips to remember: Never sell for 20 years, just keep on buying. You can sell at a certain point, but buy below price.

Perhaps one of the best things about this EIP investing scheme-for both the young once and the young ones-is that they can do it online. But one needs to be computer literate to navigate the online platform. (Visit www.colfinancial.com.) One can also do it on one’s feet, minus the computer. Bo’s www.trulyrichclub.com provides regular stock updates, suggestions and, of course, inspirational messages.

As the preacher has stressed again and again, the goal isn’t to become multimillionaires. “As I teach (people) to build their financial wealth, I also teach them to build their spiritual wealth. They need to grow in their character to handle big money, or it will destroy them. I remind them that the purpose of wealth is to love others. Use your wealth to serve God,” Bo said. CPD

Bo Sanchez is inviting the public to the Kerygma Conference 2012, the biggest Catholic inspirational conference in the country. Now on its fifth year, the conference offers two whole days of inspiration with 14 streams to choose from on Nov. 24 and 25. This will be held at the SMX Convention Center at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. For tickets and inquiries, call 725-9999 or visit www.kerygmaconference.com

 

Religious of the Good Shepehrd: weaving compassion

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

One of the wondrous times in my life was spent in a special place with very special people, in an atmosphere of simplicity and prayer. I remember how we came together somewhere, I remember taking in the mountain air and the soft scent of the pine that wafted into my soul.

The flowers were in full bloom, the hills were green and throbbing with life. The stars were out the night we gathered to sing hymns, and the sun rose gently from behind the hills the next morning. The quiet and the peace overwhelmed me in ways I could not explain. I was filled with awe and wonderment.

 But beyond feelings, I experienced community—and communion. This is indeed a special moment, I thought then, as I pondered the simplicity, as I gazed at the persons I was journeying with, persons I have come to love and cherish until today. 

 But that was long ago and far away, and that experience will not be repeated in the exact same way ever again. So. I wrote some of those lines years ago in this column space to describe an experience. Some curious readers wondered what it was all about and what place on earth I had been to. 

There are experiences one can never fully explain. But okay, that was when I was in spiritual formation as a novice of the Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS). We were on a hillside retreat cum celebration then. As I look back now, all I can say is that as sure as the transfiguration that is dazzling to behold is the agony in the garden to follow. 

Today, the RGS is marking its 100th year of active and prayerful presence in the Philippines. The centennial theme is “Weaving compassion, embracing challenges, forging hope.” Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle will lead today’s Eucharistic feast at the Good Shepherd compound in Quezon City. 

I will be there. There where I once belonged, where I once prayed and chanted melodies ancient and new. At the break of dawn. At eventide, at eventide…

 Founded in Angers, France, in 1835 by Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, the RGS or Good Shepherd Sisters (Soeurs de Notre-Dame de Charité du Bon Pasteur d’Angers) first stepped on Philippine soil on Oct. 4, 1912. The first to arrive by slow boat from Burma (Myanmar) were Irish RGS sent in response to the call of Lipa’s Bishop Giuseppe Petrelli. 


The turn of the 19th century saw a stream of arrivals of Catholic groups from Europe and North America. Note that after almost 400 years of Spanish rule came US occupation, with Protestantism gaining ground in Catholic Philippines. Among the arrivals were the Missionary Benedictine Sisters (OSB) from Germany (1906). The RGS, the Holy Spirit Sisters from Germany, and the French-founded Franciscan Missionaries of Mary followed in 1912.

They ran schools and ministries in many parts of the country. Post-Vatican II aggiornamento saw them getting more immersed in grassroots ministries for justice and peace. And it was during the dark days of martial rule (1972-1986) that many of these religious women showed their mettle, some openly leading the fight against tyranny or working underground. I have written stories about their work and heroism. 

Shouldn’t a book about their amazing zeal and ordeals be in the making? In my own forthcoming book “Human Face: A Journalist’s Encounters and Awakenings” (Inquirer Books), I included stories on their trailblazing journeys into unmapped terrain.

 For many years the RGS sisters in the Philippines were under France and, later, the United States, where many Filipino sisters had their religious formation. The Philippine province, which for some time included Hong Kong, Korea and Guam, was formed in 1960. 

 The first Filipino provincial superior was Sr. Mary Christine Tan RGS. As chair of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines after the imposition of martial rule in 1972, she led women religious in denouncing the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship. Her name and those of four RGS sisters, as well as several church women and men, are among the 250 plus names of martyrs and heroes engraved on the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument for Heroes) Wall of Remembrance. 

The RGS congregation is one of the world’s biggest. Today, more than 4,000 sisters serve in 73 countries in five continents. Close to 200 Filipino sisters are immersed in 27 foundations and varied ministries in the Philippines; 33 are in foreign missions. The present head of the Philippine province is Sr. Cecilia Torres RGS.

 Founded after the French Revolution to aid morally endangered women and girls, the RGS worked mainly in institutions in the beginning. Now the sisters’ outreach of compassion weaves tightly into the fabric of bigger society. They follow in the spirit of Jesus the Good Shepherd in seeking out the neglected, oppressed and marginalized “in whom the image of God is most obscure”—prostituted and battered women, unwed mothers in crisis, slum dwellers, landless farmers, indigenous groups, overseas workers and their families, street children and those “excluded by the forces of globalization.” 

The RGS has both apostolic and contemplative sisters, the latter complementing the former through prayer. The congregation became affiliated with the United Nations as a nongovernment organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council in 1996.

 Added to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience is the RGS’s fourth vow of zeal—“to labor with zeal for the salvation of persons.” As the spunky founder exhorted her sisters in the aftermath of the French Revolution: “Go after the lost sheep without any rest other than the cross, no consolation other than work, no thirst other than for justice. Our zeal should embrace the whole world.”

Songs of protest, songs of love

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

I am wondering why no concert has been organized to showcase the fiery and heart-rending protest music of the dreadful martial law era whose imposition 40 years ago in 1972 we are remembering with pain, horror and triumph this month. There have been art exhibits, book launchings, forums, ceremonies, fund raising and religious rites in many venues as well as memorializing in the media.

But what? No concerts? Should I just play the music in isolation, reminisce and hum by my lonesome while the memories crash in in 3-D and with sensurround reverberation?

Two years ago I donated to the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Archives and Museum close to 100 protest posters and other anti-Marcos memorabilia of the martial law era. Most of them were used for a Bantayog exhibit which I did write about (“ML posters from the edge,” 9/23/10). I felt good that finally they were in good hands. I have also donated documentaries in Betamax and VHS which, I hope, can still be converted into a digital format. 

I still have a lot of archival materials—protest statements, pamphlets, etc.—in my steel cabinet. And photos aplenty of my forays into the wilderness and battle areas—as a journalist. Of course, like some non-combatants I know, I also have souvenir photos of myself holding an Armalite and with a bristling bandolier slung across my chest. My proofs of having been there, done that. For the record: I was never a communist card holder.

What I cannot yet donate to Bantayog are cassettes of protest songs, prison songs and freedom songs composed, sang and recorded clandestinely or underground during that repressive era (1972-1986). I will do so when I am sure that these can be digitalized. Somehow many of these songs had made it above ground even during those terrible times and became the anthem of our generation of activists, freedom fighters and free spirits with a cause.

Right before me now are cassettes of “Ibong Malaya” vols. 1 and 2 with the subtitle: “Songs of freedom and struggle from Philippine Prisons.” This was produced by the Resource Center for Philippine Concerns and recorded in Singapore in 1982. I have “Philippinen Lieder der Freiheit” which contains Filipino freedom songs composed and sung by Jess Santiago, Paul Galang and the late Susan Fernandez.

I have “Prison Songs” vols. 1 and 2. A slip of paper inside the case has the list of the songs.  (I must have typed this myself) and the footnote:  “Recorded in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan in 1979 (?). Copied for Task Force Detainees (TFD) by (me), April 1999.”  I, along with TFD volunteers and religious sisters and priests were frequent visitors at detention camps during those horrible years. These songs were recorded upon my request. They were taped in the prison bathroom. Good quality!

On visiting days the prison camp came alive with food, camaraderie, music and art. Prominent detainee and intellectual Edicio de la Torre was behind many creative pursuits (music, cards, pendants, paintings) behind bars. 

I also have a cassette simply labeled “Militant Songs.” I don’t remember where this came from, but the songs must have been sung by Patatag, a militant singing group at that time. With flute, guitar, cello and, sometimes, drums. And of course, I have “Inang Laya” (Dyna, 1986) with Karina Constantino-David and Becky Demetillo-Abraham performing. 

It is the songs recorded during the darkest days in the most unlikely places that tug at my heart. We will never know who composed many of them, where in the wilderness they were first sung, perhaps with the accompaniment of a creaky guitar and in the eve of a bloody battle.  Not all the songs were songs of defiance and protest. Many were songs of love and longing for the beloved (fiancee, spouse, child), and, always, the motherland.

One is playing now and hurriedly I try to catch the refrain “Di magtatagal ang iyong paghihintay, di lahat ng araw tayo ay hiwalay, wag kang lumuha,  ako’s nasa iyong tabi, tayo magkasabay sa madilim na landas, tungo sa maningnging na bukas…”

 “Meme na aking bunso, ang tatay mo ay lalayo”are lines from a lullaby a father sings to his child before he goes off to the battlefield. “Paalam na o mutya ng aking pagmamahal, ako’y babalik at hintayin mo sana ang aking paguwi.”

Perhaps one of the saddest is “Wala nang tao sa Santa Filomena” which is about a deserted village that has been “hamletted” and militarized. Ah, it will bring tears to your eyes. “Tumidig Ka,” is sometimes used in place of the “Our Father” in underground liturgies. 

Sung during funeral masses for fallen comrades: “Unang alay, unang tuwa, unang ngiti, unang alay, ay buhay, sa kinabukasan…Bawat bayan may dapithapon na may korona sa magdamag… ‘Wag  palupig  sa lumbay, wag paapi sa hapis, harapin natin ang bukas ng may pananalalig.” I first heard this at the funeral of slain rebel priest Fr. Zacarias Agatep.

“Masdan ang daloy ng tubig sa batis ng gubat, ‘di ito matutuyo  bukal nito ay lilikas, konting agos sa ilog magtitipong lakas at mararating ang inang dagat. Kung ang daloy ng tubig, tubig na naipon, higit na lalakas, tibayan man ang harang sa huli ay sasambulat. Wawasakin ang lahat ng balakid upang laya’y makamtan.” Sasambulat, wawasakin. How onomatopoeic.

All melodious (minor key often shifting to major, like the kundiman), the music has matching lyrics written by warrior-poets. I now imagine a medley of these songs arranged for a symphony orchestra and sung by a hundred voices on a shimmering stage under the stars. 

These songs kept the fires burning before the breaking of dawn.

Corruption in NGOs

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

What a shock it was to read that a much-awarded, much-funded nongovernment organization (NGO) is being investigated for fund anomalies. It was front-page news (reported by Nancy C. Carvajal) in the Inquirer last Sept. 14, and the day’s banner story no less. 

The headline: “US sues top NGO execs.” The subhead: “P210-million aid unaccounted for.” The lead paragraph: “The US government has accused the founder and president of Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFFI), a group that has won international accolades for its campaign against human trafficking, of failing to account for P210 million in US aid, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said.” 

That the NBI is investigating means that this case is not a small one. NBI antifraud chief Rachel Marfil-Angeles said charges of falsification of documents were filed against VFFI respondents. This was based on the complaint of USAID official Daniel Altman and the testimonies of two whistle-blowers and boxes of falsified documents seized in a raid on the VFFI Quezon City office.  

This case is sure to rock the NGO world not just in the Philippines but in Asia. The Philippines is teeming with international and national NGOs into which a lot of foreign funding has been plowed (for development and varied advocacies) over several decades, resulting in donor fatigue. Now this. 

 The VFFI officers will question the NBI’s findings and the whistle-blowers’ allegations in court. I withhold my judgment until the final verdict is out. 

In 2006 I wrote a cover story for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine on VFFI founder Cecile Oebanda, who is at the center of the current probe. She was suddenly catapulted to the NGO firmament around that time, having won for VFFI a string of international awards. 

Oebanda also has a storybook, for-the-movies kind of background—born poor, did well in school, was a catechist, joined the armed communist resistance (she was known as Commander Liway), and figured in bloody battles, imprisoned wife and mother, solo parent, NGO worker. 

The first paragraphs of my 2006 feature story: The first Sunkist orange that she ever tasted she found in the garbage dump. At a very young age of five she was already hawking fish. Buyers would say, “Dance, little girl, dance, and we’ll buy what you sell.” She would oblige, sell, and move on, with the basket of fish on her head and fishy water streaming down her neck and shoulders. The dump and the streets could not even be her playground as there was no time for play. It was where she clawed her way to survive. That landscape haunts her to this day, as do the sounds, the slights, and most of all, the filthy smell of her lost childhood. 

 Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, 47, looks back and declares that her family was among the poorest of the poor. If her life were a movie, it would start off as a four-hankie melodrama progressing in a Brockaesque pace toward a defiant denouement. It’s been a long and winding road from there to here. Two months ago, on Nov. 29 (2005), Cecil, executive director of Visayan Forum Foundation, received the 2005 Anti-Slavery Award in London “for her outstanding and innovative work in the Philippines and surrounding regions, particularly in the area of child domestic work.” 

You can search online and read the whole article. 

 This needs to be said: While NGO work is synonymous with selfless service for the poor and oppressed, NGOs are not entirely made up of saintly people who are beyond temptation. You’ll be amazed at how those who hold the purse strings can navigate their way around and end up with their hands in the cookie jar. Some get caught early on, others get caught when it’s too late. 

I know first-hand of a case where the finance officer was in cahoots with the messenger assigned to transact with the bank teller. The triumvirate did something about the dollar exchange and funneled the excess amounts into their pockets. By the end of the year around P1 million had been lost. The executive director said she knew nothing and found out too late. She can tell that to her lola. The case is still pending in court. 

Some NGOs have board members that are not always involved. They just say yes (e.g., to exorbitant salaries and freebies) and sign papers shoved before them. Or executive directors are so busy with project implementation that they do not know what is going on in the finance department. 

There are NGO officers who deliberately commit fraud. I have heard of fake “official receipts” bought in Divisoria for ghost purchases. I have heard of seminars with ghost participants. I have heard of ghost beneficiaries and scholars. 

They sure can produce genuine receipts for purchases (groceries, school supplies) that they will take home for their own personal use. Or order much too much food for a meeting and take home the “excess.” They go on R and R (“out-of-town” meetings) and shop using NGO money. This is also a practice in the government bureaucracy, I am told. 

There are those who put up so-called service-oriented NGOs (even foundations) from which their families can draw salaries, that is, as their family’s “livelihood” program. 

I say this with contempt: Those who put up foundations should have personal wealth to donate to the foundations; they should not make foundations their cash cows. And yes, I am scandalized when I learn of an NGO headed by or employing a conjugal team—husband and wife, that is. 

Funding agencies are stricter now but the corrupt are wilier, too. Are Left-leaning NGOs still able to funnel funds to the communist underground?

Who are out to kill the Subanen chiefs?

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

Last Sept. 4, Timuay Lucenio Manda, a Subanen chieftain and environmental defender, and his 11-year-old son Jordan were ambushed by armed men. Jordan died instantly. Manda sustained wounds. The ambush happened on a road between Conacon and Bubuan in Bayog, Zamboanga Peninsula, in Mindanao.

Timuay Barlie Balives is second from right. Columban photo)
Last July, Subanen Timuay Barlie Balives and his son Gerry were killed at their home in Duilec, a remote rural area about four hours away by foot from the town of Midsalip, also in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Manda and Balives hold/held the Timuay title that means “chief.” Both are/were defenders of their ancestral domain against the intrusion of destroyers of their natural habitat.

The Subanen are an indigenous group native to the Zamboanga Peninsula. The name means “river people” and comes from the word suba (river). The Subanen, who wear beautiful native costumes, used to dwell near rivers until the intrusion of Muslim groups and settlers from other places. They have since moved to hillsides and mountains.

The bad news is that these indigenous people (IP) who once freely roamed the vastness of Mindanao are under siege. Their vocal leaders are under threat of extermination.

The National Secretariat of Social Action-Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (Nassa-CBCP) has issued a statement (“Stop Attacking Environmental Defenders” dated Sept. 7, 2012) condemning the attack on Manda, whom the bishops described as a strong antimining advocate. They likened Manda to other “environmental defenders who offered their lives to protect Mother Earth, [and thus the attacks] merit the immediate action of the national government, to stop further violence and impunity, especially in areas where the environment is under threat by exploitative and environmentally destructive operations which are insensitive to people’s rights.”

The killing of Barlie and Gerry Balives preceded the attack on the Mandas. The Columban missionaries, who work among the Subanen, said father and son “were horribly mutilated in what appears to be a ritualistic killing reminiscent of the 1980s when fanatical groups roamed and controlled areas of Mindanao and terrorized the local population.”

London-based Fr. Frank Nally, who had worked in the Midsalip parish, said the killings had “shocked” not only the local people but also the Columban priests and sisters who work with the Subanen. “[They] have noticed a slide toward the rule of law being abandoned in the countryside. There is no security or rule of law now as their lives are ruined by outsiders after the [discovery of] minerals, iron-ore and gold on their land.”

The attacks on the Mandas and the Balives are slowly establishing a pattern. Who are behind these? What are their motives? The answers may be obvious but there is no assurance that the killings will stop unless the authorities will show enough teeth. (A recent Inquirer.net report said the suspects had been identified.)

Nassa-CBCP said Timuay Manda had questioned the entry of logging and mining operations without the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) required by law. “He led his fellow IPs in neighboring ancestral domains in calling for a moratorium on all forms of mining until they get their official ancestral domain claims; and together with local Catholic bishops and concerned groups, he joined filing a petition for the Writ of Kalikasan in protection of the Pinukis Range Forest, which is now included in mining claims of several companies.”

The petition is aimed at protecting their sacred mountain and watershed of three major rice-growing areas in the peninsula that produces 30 percent of the rice in the region. It is disheartening that the area has been opened to exploitation, Nassa-CBCP said. “There are eight mining permit applications, three approved Mining Production Sharing Agreements, one approved Exploration Permit and many small-scale mining operations. More so, those who protect the area, like Timuay Manda and his supporters, have been receiving threats in the past three years for their opposition to destructive mining industries.”

According to Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Timuay Manda has been leading his tribe in claiming and protecting their ancestral domain in the last 10 years after his cousin, Timuay Giovanni Umban, was assassinated in 2002. The cousins questioned the entry of logging and mining in their ancestral domain without the FPIC, ATM said.

It said that early last month, Manda led a group of Timuays from Bayog and neighboring ancestral domains in calling for a moratorium on all forms of mining until they could get their Certificate of Ancestral Domian Title and Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan. This effort was supported by the local office of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

Manda is also leading efforts to strengthen and unify the Subanen in Central Zamboanga Peninsula in order to protect and claim their remaining contiguous ancestral domain. He is gathering other Timuays from Sindangan, Bacungan, Siayan and Godod of Zamboanga del Norte and from Lakewood and Kumalarang in Zamboanga del Sur.

ATM said Manda had been grooming Jordan, his eldest son, to be a Timuay. Jordan’s mother Delma is devastated. The boy was in the top five of his fourth-grade class in Bubuan Elementary School. He often attended the meetings of the elders and was interested in his people’s history. He was a favorite of his 70-year-old grandmother, a knowledgeable keeper of the tribe’s history, music, arts and genealogy.

The death of this once future Timuay will not be in vain.

Filipino moms rank first in food campaign

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

Filipino mothers rank first in wanting to make a difference in the world’s ailing food system. This is the finding of a six-country survey of Oxfam, an international NGO.

In its report, “The Food Transformation: Harnessing Consumer Power to Create a Fair Food Future,” Oxfam said women who make the majority of the decisions about the food their families eat control amounts to around $12 trillion or 65 percent of the world’s annual consumer spending. The Oxfam report also revealed that the women surveyed want to know what changes they can make in the way they buy, store and prepare food in order to tackle hunger and help the environment.

Oxfam found out that 73 percent of mothers living in urban areas of the six countries surveyed said they want to know how to make a difference when they shopped for food. Filipino mothers posted the highest at 88 percent.

Oxfam laments that the global food system—how food is grown, distributed and consumed—sends 1 billion people to bed (if there are beds) hungry every night. And yet consumers, women in particular, can dramatically turn things around by making “positive food choices.”

It must be instinct that drives women to always find ways to make changes for the better. But it would be even better if they are shown how, where, when, what and why. For example 83 percent of all the mothers in the survey said they wanted to know how to use less energy when cooking. More than 75 percent also said they were happy to make other changes such as feeding their families a meat-free meal once a week. And 85 percent of Filipino mothers were willing to give up meat, while 96 percent of them wanted to know how to use less energy when cooking.

This brings to my mind a nun who taught poor rural women how to cook nutritious and delicious meals that used cheap, indigenous and readily available ingredients. Ingredients that many ignored because these were thought to be less tasty or because people were ignorant about their nutritional value.

That is why I am glad that the humble malunggay that thrives just about anywhere is now the toast of nutritionists and alternative healers. And so is the kamote which still has to be rehabilitated from years of verbal abuse, as in nangamote, which refers to a person groveling in failure. And now the violet variety is even vaunted as a super food. I have planted some in my backyard but the heavy rains weren’t very kind.

Said Kalayaan Pulido-Constantino, Oxfam spokesperson for the Philippines: “The survey shows that Filipino women can be a force to fix the way we manage food. Filipino women—and men who must begin to share this responsibility—can do this through positive food choices that redound to the good of our food system.


“For example, they can buy produce from small farmers to help strengthen their livelihoods and therefore sustain food production for the long term.” In the Philippines, she added, Oxfam is working with partners to put up women’s markets—alternative spaces which sell food sustainably produced by women, women who remain largely unrecognized as food producers.

Last year, I wrote a magazine feature on women farmers who grew food with their own hands and the celebrity chefs who showcased the resulting dishes in an Oxfam lunch event. While I like to see more of this, I would also like to see TV food shows that teach poor families how to cook cheap, nutritious and delicious dishes.

TV has so many cooking shows that feature celebrity chefs and other wannabes who promote food brands, equipment and themselves. Why not a no-nonsense pang-masa TV food show that is instructive? Will there be sponsors?

TV is a must-have even for poor families because it is the cheapest entertainment for them. You see TV antennae sticking out from homes under bridges. Maybe food/cooking lessons of the TV kind would work best among women in organized communities. Women learning together and trying out new things together.

Street families—now a new sector unto themselves—are a different story. They surely have food stories—shortages, that is—of their own.

“Women across the globe are concerned about the way food is produced and the people who produce it,” said global Oxfam spokesman Colin Roche. “They want to know what they can do to make a difference and together they are a powerful force for change.” Oxfam, he added, has come up with ways women can adopt—from cutting waste to using less energy—that anyone can do to help put the global food system back on the road to recovery. What we do in the supermarket or in the kitchen does matter, he said.

Five positive choices which, if people around the world would make, would help farmers feed themselves and their communities and tackle climate change that adversely affect food production: Eat less meat, reduce food waste, support small-scale food producers such as buying Fair Trade, buy seasonal, and cook smarter. Why? Visit www.oxfamblogs.org/philippines.

The survey of over 5,100 mothers from towns and cities in Brazil, India, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States and Spain showed that women in developed countries felt less connected to food producers and less knowledgeable about their food choices’ impact on people and planet ascompared to women in developing countries.

Oxfam said 86 percent of Filipino mothers surveyed felt they knew how their food choices affected the wider world compared to 46 percent in the US; 60 percent of Indian women surveyed felt a connection to food producers compared to just 23 percent in the UK.

In the Philippines, Oxfam is working with women farmers and fishers to promote sustainably produced food.

Better dead than read: The years of writing dangerously

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

I dig my files and clippings and I realize that this assignment is somewhat discomfiting. A flood of memories surges, tsunami-like. I feel the warmth of triumph and of freedom long-won, but also feel sadness over the loss of those I had met and known and written about.

It all began more than 30 years ago.

On July 10, 1980, my face was on the front page of Bulletin Today, the biggest newspaper at that time. The photo caption read: “Hearing: A magazine writer, Ma. Ceres Doyo, answers questions from Deputy Defense Minister Carmelo Barbero, chairman of the Armed Forces human rights committee, in connection with her article on the death of Bugnay chieftain Macli-ing. (Photo by) L. Perez.”

The caption was misleading. It was not a “hearing”; it was a public interrogation. What “human rights committee”?

SUICIDE JOURNALISM: The author being arrested by the Metrocom during martial law. Photo by Erik de Castro  

The article headline was simply, “MACLI-ING.” All caps. The blurb was also misleading: “Dismiss link between dam, tribesman slay.” The military was dismissing the link, not me. The byline on the news story? Ramon Tulfo.

Several national papers carried the story on my interrogation following my Macli-ing Dulag story that came out in the Panorama Magazine dated June 29, 1980. (With birthday girl Imelda Marcos on the cover.) The story about Macli-ing’s death and the subsequent investigations ran for days in the Marcos-controlled newspapers and in two foreign magazines. Letters to the editor and to me poured in.
HEAR THEM ROAR: Women’s rallies during the ML era that the author regularly covered (top and extreme right). Press censorship was documented in the book “The Philippine Press Under Siege” (right). (Photos by Ceres Doyo)

As a writer, that Camp Aguinaldo interrogation was my first high-profile brush with the military. A few years earlier, writer Chit Estella and I were seized by the Metrocom while we were transporting an anti-dictatorship publication, “Iron Hand, Velvet Glove,” for a church-based human rights group. It was night and I was driving a car full of “subversive” materials. The armed men released us upon the intercession of Sr. Mary Christine Tan, RGS.

For the Macli-ing story, I received the summons dated July 5, 1980 through Panorama editor Letty J. Magsanoc (now Inquirer editor in chief). Without batting an eyelash, she had published my story about the killing of Macli-ing Dulag, chief of the Butbut tribe in Kalinga-Apayao. She sure gave it a provocative title: “Was Macli-ing killed because he damned the Chico Dam?” Macli-ing led his tribe in opposing the construction of the Chico River dam. One night, armed men barged into his mountain home and pumped bullets into him.

With a group of church and human rights workers I went to Kalinga on a fact-finding mission. To get to Bugnay village we scaled hills and crossed the raging Chico River with the help of Kalinga braves in G-strings. In the home of Macli-ing, I saw the blood on the wall and ran my fingers on it. I listened to the people’s stories and took photographs. After that I don’t know what possessed me but I just sat down and wrote. I sent the story and trembled. A dam inside me had burst.

That was my first major feature article and it got me and my editor in trouble.

Before going to the interrogation I went to Sen. Jovito Salonga, a former martial law detainee. His advice: “Go.” He said it like a blessing. A horde of nuns and a very concerned aunt of mine went with me. They took down notes-the questions, my answers. (I still have those notes.)

A few months later, in January 1981, Pope John Paul II came for a visit. What do you know, he handed me the Catholic Mass Media Awards trophy for that Macli-ing story. He held my head with both palms. It was never the same after that. The writing continued. Magsanoc would call it “suicide journalism.”

The second interrogation was in 1982. There was this series of summons for, and interrogations of, women writers that went on for days. This time, the individual interrogations were held inside closed doors and the interrogators were high-ranking military officials-a general and several colonels (one of them a woman). There was food galore-and wine, too-but how could one eat while being cracked?

I was the first to be summoned to Fort Bonifacio. Next were Domini Torrevillas, Jo-Ann Maglipon, Lorna Kalaw-Tirol, Niñez Cacho-Olivares, Arlene Babst, Eugenia Apostol and Doris Nuyda. Torrevillas, Tirol and I (a freelancer) were writing for Panorama, the Sunday magazine of Bulletin Today. Olivares and Babst were Bulletin columnists. Apostol was the publisher, and Nuyda an editor, of Mr. & Ms. magazine. Obviously, the military and, it goes without saying, the Marcos dictatorship did not like what we were writing. (The Inquirer, began in December 1985, was not yet a gleam in Eggie Apostol’s eye.)

For several hours the military officers questioned me for my magazine stories on the military’s human rights abuses in Bataan and on rebel-priest Fr. Zacarias Agatep who was killed in an encounter with soldiers. The Macli-ing story was also brought up. I was giving the government a bad image, the interrogators said. Before the interrogation began, I had asked loudly and defiantly, with pen and paper in hand: “Please give me your names.” And they did.

We all emerged uncracked. Ah, the stories we narrated to one another. What did we-the women writers-do next? Having gotten all the interrogators’ names, we plotted in the dead of night and built a case against them with the help of the Flag and Mabini lawyers. We strode into a jampacked Supreme Court to question the so-called National Intelligence Board, a creation of the Marcos military dictatorship to cow writers. We won. The respondents said they were done with it anyway. Duuuh…

We were front-page news. Not long after, Panorama editor Torrevillas and I were each slapped a P10-million libel suit for my story on military abuses in Bataan, courtesy of a military general who was not even in Bataan at that time, I was told.

My lawyers: Saklolo Leano (Siguion-Reyna Law Offices), Flag and Mabini lawyers Joker Arroyo, Rene Saguisag, Fulgencio Factoran, Jejomar Binay, Antonio Rosales, Augusto Sanchez, Lorenzo Tanada. The same ones who marched with us to the Supreme Court. At the preliminary investigation, Arroyo and Saguisag exchanged barbs with the fiscal nicknamed Joe Flame (Jose Flaminiano) who proceeded to file the case because he had to. (The case was dropped after the People Power uprising and Cory Aquino rose to the presidency.)

But there were other writers and stories similarly treated but which were not widely known and documented. So in 1984 and 1985, a group of us came up with two volumes-”The Philippine Press Under Siege,” volumes 1 and 2, that contained “dangerous writing,” stories that provoked the dictatorship-and their aftermath. It was published by the Committee to Protect Writers of the National Press Club under the bold leadership of the late Tony Nieva. Leonor Aureus-Briscoe edited Vol. 2. Transcripts of my two interrogations (from notes and memory) are in volume 2.

From the editors’ note in volume 1: “Together, (these stories) show the kind of ’dangerous writing’ that has brought about the forced resignation, firing, blacklisting, arrest or detention of journalists, the padlocking or sequestering of a newspaper’s printing plant and equipment, and the filing of multi-million peso libel suits or subversive charges against writers, editors and publishers.

“What constitutes ’dangerous writing’ these days? Perhaps this volume can shed some light on this question. Two articles… deal with the President. Six reports are on the growing militarization in the countryside. Two are about election fraud and two on the aftermath of the Aquino assassination.”

Of volume 2, Nieva wrote: “Better dead than read” may well have been the title of this book for its graphic documentation of the blood-and-sand state of a profession under siege, underlying the personal struggles and heartbreaks of the men and women of the Philippine press who now work under the shadow of death itself.”

(I am trying to get a publisher for the 2012 second edition—two books in one.)

Having been harassed for my writings, I joined the almost 10,000 individuals who filed a class suit against Ferdinand Marcos and his estate. In 2010, almost 25 years after the dictator’s downfall, the victims and survivors of martial law excesses finally got a trickle in the amount of $1,000 each from a newly discovered hidden/ill-gotten stash. We know there’s more where this came from. One thousand dollars—a measly sum for all the blood—and ink, in our case—that was poured, until and unless the other claimant, our democratic government, looks the other way.

Still and all, I say, what a great and sobering adventure it has been. Doing the stories gave me great times—of terror and joy and sadness and fun. As I always say, nobody told me it would be like this. •