When my parents renovated the old family house in the early 1960s, they had two rows of huge storage closets painted in bright Mondrian colors, built right into an entire wall from floor to ceiling, right beside the stairs and near a backdoor leading to the garage. Both closet arrays were some 5 feet high, 7 feet wide and 3 feet deep. So you could imagine that a young boy could easily snuggle inside, keep quiet, and not be noticed for the rest of the day. Continue reading “My secret vice that I’ll fight to keep”
Four years with no television, and thankful for it
What I did was something long strived for but not really premeditated, like when I stopped smoking nearly 20 years ago. I mean, the fact that I have now passed four years without any television at home, was an event as natural as the breaking dawn. It simply happened, almost without my even noticing it. It was not the result of a formal decision and setting a phaseout schedule or cut-off date. Continue reading “Four years with no television, and thankful for it”
The Manero mindset is all around us
Tullio Favali was an Italian missionary who was a parish priest in a town in Cotabato where the New People’s Army operated and who therefore was a suspected NPA sympathizer because he worked among farmers and protested martial law abuses. He was confronting a government militia force led by the Manero brothers when they shot him in cold blood, his head blown off by a militia gun fired pointblank into his face. (Fr. Favali’s story is told more fully on the Bantayog website.)
That was in 1985. But that did not stop foreigners—priests, nuns, lay volunteers, researchers, activists—from joining progressive organizations and protest rallies not just in Metro Manila but in other cities and town centers as part of their advocacy. We welcomed all forms of support that they extended to unions, urban poor groups, peasant associations, indigenous communities, and Filipino activist groups that worked among the poor. Continue reading “The Manero mindset is all around us”