Caritas Manila

As you read this, Flores de Mayo and Santacruzan may already be happening in your communities. Pope Benedict XVI meanwhile reminds the youth in this Marian month, “Christ needs you to be by his side to extend and build his kingdom of charity.”

“If life throws stones at you, throw back bread.” So goes one of our Filipino proverbs. Just this Labor Day in the Philippines , coinciding with Pope Benedict XVI’s Catechesis on Prayer, Caritas SALVE did throw back pandesal.

North Korea reportedly issued a statement that they are not pushing through with the rocket launch Thursday. But the Prayer Text Brigade continues. It seeks to put our trust on His Divine Mercy to enlighten Nokor and world leaders to value human life and all life on the planet, and to desist from actions that would threaten their destruction.

I slipped twice – feels like seven - times today, taking my walk on the top of the walls of the Tower of David , the Jerusalem Citadel, during this Holy Land Pilgrimage.

During a break in the annual assembly of a cooperative where we had family-based membership, because the Solemnity of St. Joseph is on March 19, I pondered how foster father and son would have prepared for tough times.

‘Go, make disciples, baptize, teach.’ These are the operative words in the command of Jesus before he left the apostles. From this comes the evangelizing mission of the Church; a mission grounded on the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

As we continue to urge all of our brothers and sisters in Christ to Support Alay Kapwa (now on its second Sunday) this Lent, through the special second collections, I would like to share with you the specialAlay Kapwa message of His Excellency Most Rev. Broderick S. Pabillo, Auxilliary Bishop of Manila.

The new Archbishop of Manila is urging everyone to support the special collections for Alay Kapwa for six Sundays this Lent from February 26 to April 1. The funds gathered for six Sundays will be used as emergency funds for crises and calamities through Caritas Manila.

“Big dreams mean big goals, big hopes, big joys. Say ‘yes’ and enjoy all that you are doing, and help others to do the same.” That is Howard Behar, maverick President of Starbucks International (now retired), on his “yes” principle of personal leadership.

There is a Yes which responds. Last January, three unassuming women, Mary Gotua, Helen Lo, and Esther GB Ang, members of the Buddhist Huatkong Temple in Sta. Mesa brought 135 sacks of rice, 50 boxes of noodles, and 50 boxes of sardines to Caritas Damay Kapanalig. Sr. Maria Fe Mata of the Sisters of the Holy Family Nazareth who assisted them said, “They said yes to your call for Sendong victims and affected families in Mindanao ”.

As I listened intently to the Social Weather Station social survey presentations last January 18 in my alma mater, Asian Institute of Management, I recalled what Servant Leader founder, Robert K. Greenleaf, said attracted me to its principles: it is all about institutions as servants not individuals.

“Christianity is growing almost as fast as humanity itself”, so The Economist reports, with an estimated 2.2 billion followers worldwide. But harassment – to use a tame term – continues from Israel – the Holy land itself where Christ Child was born- all the way to India where Hindu nationalists are reported bent on drafting laws against Christians who convert non-Christians to the faith.

Every first day of a new year is a Porta Fidei. A “door of faith” – (Acts 14:27) - opens for us, no matter what the past year has been like; no matter whether we have lived all or some of 365 days of 2011 as believers or not. So we must be alert, and dare to enter.

First, for the mess unbridled industrialization, climate change and disaster mis-preparedness make in small communities, measured in sudden loss of thousands of human lives and loves: Remember Emmanuel. Remember that our loving God is neither deaf nor distant, disabled nor dead.

“How should a Catholic think about the impeachment process?” A reader’s email caught my attention. Let me count the ways. First, Hand-in-Glove: Are we into this “hand-in-glove”?. It is impossible to be a good Catholic without being a good citizen, for the informed follower of Christ.

What do Pedring, computerized Senior Citizen Cards and Caritas have in common? Sirit? The color grey. Grey clouds. Long lines of grey-haired senior citizens lining up to get their senior citizen cards. And Caritas’ experience of living out the Catholic social teaching on The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Church and in the World.

The BER months are here again! Christmas is just around the corner: a time for reunions and budgeting the year’s bonus (if indeed there would be any), for gifts, e-cards and charitable donations deductable in the next income tax return. The commercialized, commoditized season of the Babe in swaddling clothes always reminds me of Cradle Catholics – those of us who have been born into the faith – who are nowhere near His manger.

A young friend returning from the World Youth Day in Madrid this week, asked me if servant leadership was breeding an Esau-style or Jacob-style leader. My immediate resonse was to quote St Augustine , “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” Love looks like a servant leader.

These days, we wake up to one new crisis everyday. If it’s neither a natural or a man-made disaster, it is a systemic one like the seemingly incessant discussion in the US Congress, while S&P downgrades the United States to AA+, and investors put their investments on hold worldwide as stock markets nearly everywhere make a deep dive.

I still recall that Special Cabinet Meeting that was called for me to explain my “objections” to the Conditional Cash Transfer program of the Arroyo administration. The late Cerge Rimonde, then Presidential Management Staff Head called me up on a weekend’s notice because I was quoted in media that CCT was “outright dole-out”.

Pantawid Pamilya is in the news again. “Some family heads, usually the husbands, use the cash cards as collaterals for a personal loan from lending shops. They are warned that if proven to be true, they will have two more chances before they are dropped from the roll of beneficiaries. Those who complained lately that they did not get the promised amount did not realize that classes are suspended during summer, thus, the students allocation of P300 per pax, has not been distributed for practical reasons.”

It was Grace Poe-Llamanzares, Chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), who acted swiftly and decisively on reviewing the censorship and rating of a Dolphy movie that made fun of priests, before we could even finish stirring our coffee. It was she again I saw on a morning show, holding up a thick document entitled, “What They Did To Your Father”.

My favorite radio station, Radio Veritas846 (by the way I am its Chief Operating Officer), with the help of Catholic lay leaders, have launched “Piso-piso,” a fundraising campaign for the poor Archdioceses and Dioceses of the Catholic Church in the Philippines for the purpose of aiding them to have service vehicles.

In this issue, I share with you in full the Bishops Pastoral Statement and the Bishops statement before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

To return or not to return the 4x4 vehicles given to Bishops? This is a trick question, said in jest, in some business and academic circles. But for the majority of the “paniqui brigade” who must, day in and day out, struggle to ride a jeepney or a bus or the LRT to and from work, and still manage to go to Church on Sundays, it wasn’t funny at all. What? Bishops in luxury vehicles bought from a charity fund? Is this country is so corrupt, even Bishops are not spared? But that is twisting the truth. The facts appear simple enough.

(Excerpts from the Homily delivered by His Eminence Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales, Archbishop of Manila during Mass in celebration of the 7th Anniversary of Pondo ng Pinoy) Constancy or repetition is the mother of virtues. PONDO NG PINOY relies on the availability of love fed to it by the unfailing repletion of the littlest charitable acts, so easy to repeat, because the insistence of Jesus and the poor is that love is given in little doses of compassion born of an honest love for God.

Philippine Independence was proclaimed on June 12, 1898 – the day the Philippine flag was first raised and the anthem was first sung as one Filipino nation and the Constitution with a Bill of Rights (the first in Asia so historians have affirmed) was signed by the founding fathers of this nation.

Was it not a surprise, after the acrimonious debates on the RH bill, the divorce bill has been unfurled for public debate? And just so when we begin the “marry” month of weddings.

“What you can’t describe, you can’t manage.” So says Dave Norton of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) fame. A surprising remark when we have been taught that is what you can’t measure that you can’t manage. With all the debates, dialogues and discussions on the RH bill, and the linked issues that pit – unfairly and sadly - the Church versus the Government, one wonders if there is really safety in having the numbers – be they votes in Congress, or participants in “No to RH bill” rallies, or sponsors and advertisers for a pro-RH bill television special.

As the feast of San Isidro Labrador approaches this Sunday, images of colorful thanksgiving processions for bountiful harvests come to mind in Sariaya and Lukban, Quezon and Talavera, Nueva Ecija. The bagakays line the procession route, prepared with pahiyas or rice cakes and samples of harvests and products of families, ready for grabs (literally) and giving away to symbolize sharing of the blessings of good harvest.