When We Are Fully Human

The desire and longing to be a free and fully human is perhaps the deepest and strongest need of every person. It seems all creatures want freedom. Birds want freedom to fly from a cage, beasts to roam the land, monkeys to swing in the trees of the forest, fish to swim in the seas.   

Humans want to be free to walk the earth without chains, guards, and fear in the power and custody of others. Personal freedom to speak the truth to power and political freedom are among the most important of all human freedoms.

"What is it that makes us a human being?", I often ask the college students who come to study college-level psychology, social work, and other subjects in their practicum internship at the Preda Foundation.

They come from many countries in Europe, from Canada, Japan, the Philippines and USA.  I ask them to answer that basic question. “Tell me in a few words, the attributes of the human person that set us apart from the other animals and makes us uniquely human.” I ask that just to help us focus on whom and what we are. I am amazed as I am frequently met with embarrassed silence. What do you think makes us humans?

Well, the children at the Preda Home for Girls, ages 6 to 16 years, are pretty smart and they will raise their hands and speak up and they have true answers to the question. And that knowledge is what encourages and inspires them to be strong, resilient, brave, and courageous in facing up and dealing with the most horrific thing that could happen to them- child rape and acts of sexual abuse.

Society has always unrated children, denied them their rights and dignity and used, enslaved and physically and sexually abused them as if they were not human. Many people do not see children, especially those not their own, as having rights especially the poor, skinny, malnourished and sickly children of the streets, those in prison as equally human.  That’s why so many are left to go hungry, uneducated, and die of diseases before they reach ten years old.  

In the Philippines, the Secretary of Justice justified the killing of the youth on mere suspicion of wrong-doing because they were “not humanity,” he said. Therefore there could be no crime against humanity if they were summarily executed. I wonder if that argument would hold up in the International Criminal Court one day.

The amazing fact seems to be emerging of a Catholic country that has lost it Christianity.  Archbishop Socrates Villegas says many Filipino “Catholics” love the trappings and processions and outward devotions of Catholicism but he worries profoundly about what lies underneath the surface. They say they are Catholic but are they Christian is what the archbishop seems to ask.

In asking how Catholic they are, the outspoken Archbishop has said that they “declare faith, but agree that drug addicts should be shot… and many approve corruption in government.” (See the full report on the Sunday Examiner 30 April 2017 and www.preda.org) The outspoken bishops are attacked online by thousands of critics. “When we speak, they want us muted, when we oppose they want us maimed, when we stand for life they want us dead,” he said. Sad to say many bishops don’t know what it is to be fully human and as a result they fail to act for justice and truth and gospel values. 

Many have been silent so long they are now dumb. Fear is a powerful weapon. But the children, even when they are threatened even by death, they find the courage to speak out. When given the freedom, protection, and empowerment they need they can speak out for justice and truth especially when they are the victims of injustice, rape, and abuse.

The childhood of Anna Darling, 15, was taken away by a male pedophile known and approved to her mother and together they conspired to have Anna Darling made a sex slave with threats of killing her if she told anyone. The fear kept her silent. She had nowhere to run to. Yet, the pain became unbearable and eventually she found a woman she trusted that listened to her and believed her and Anna Darling told her story.

She was rescued and after months in therapy at the Preda home with 42 other abused children, she began to heal. Soon she was ready and bravely asked to be able to testify against her abusers. The case is now in court and justice, we hope, will be done and be seen to be done.

Anna Darling discovered and believed that she has human rights, profound dignity, equality before God, that she was a child and the most important in the Kingdom of God and had civil and legal rights. She was empowered and overcame her fear. She learned too that her humanity is based on having reason and the ability to think for herself, to have knowledge of right and wrong and to have free will to choose the right over the wrong. She also found that she has the unique human ability to communicate and speak out the truth and to love others.   

Anna Darling, 15, used all five attributes of humanity to get justice. What a girl! If we could all be more reasonable, be actively thinking, knowing, choosing right over wrong, good over bad, truth over falsehood, speaking out and loving our neighbor what a different world we would live in.

Faith in Action Keeps it Strong and Alive

Christmas is the celebration of the family, the birth of Jesus and his great mission to lead the world from sin, vice and cruelty to a kingdom where people are free to live a life of virtue and goodness. Here we can be members of God's family and strive for friendship, justice, love and peace. What a great and beautiful ideal.

The family is under great pressure these days as the cellphone, the Internet and social media spread so much negative influences from child pornography, extortion, bullying and sexual grooming and abuse.

Evil has its tentacles wrapped around the minds and hearts of our youth and adults through these technological means of communication. The youth have to be helped to resist and throw off these influences and embrace a life of virtue. Adults too are under great temptation. There is even a website that encourages people to sign up to have an adulterous relationship, designed to destroy families and leave children without united parents.

Yet there are millions of families that are rooted in deep Christian values of love, faithfulness and compassionate concern that helps the abused, exploited people. But these too are under pressure as society is becoming more secular, frivolous and prone to vice, materialism, corruption and crime.

Love as a spiritual experience of unselfish friendship is hard to find these days. Today they are easily overwhelmed by the selfish satisfaction of personal desires, greed and lust. The great ideal of service of others through volunteering without asking payments, rewards, praise and entitlements is diminishing. The age when thousands of young people answered the call to dedicate their lives to the service for the poor and the downtrodden is coming to an end. The age of the cheater, swindler, manipulator, betrayer and unfaithful is here.

Those who strive to lead a good and virtuous life have to strengthen their belief in eternal goodness and the sanctity of life, love, family and true faithful friends. Goodness abounds but it is not organized into a strong movement that could overwhelm the march of evil and corrupt practices of injustice and torture and abuse. Silence of the good people has given a kind of consent to the triumph of evil in today's world. As Jesus said, we have to shout it from the roof tops and take a principled stand for what is right and just.

The enemy of the people is clearly seen in the corruption, graft, kickback and plunder of the people's taxes by the dynastic families. The bad example from leaders permeates society and corrupts all around it. Justice is tainted and criminals go free. The incompetence of corrupt governance is apparent everywhere.

The recent expose of the beaten and starving naked children lying on the cement ground like the victims of Auschwitz at the Manila children's detention center called RAC (Reception and Action Center) caused outrage but not enough. The children photographed looked like the skeletal victims of Auschwitz. I wrote about them recently and the horrors they endured. The social workers, managers and those sworn to help them allegedly betrayed the children and their profession. Allegations of pilfered money needed for the children's food abound but are denied. Unqualified, underpaid staff are part of the abuse. The case of Francisco is just one of many examples of starved and tortured children as revealed this week by Amnesty International in Manila. Several of the victims of torture mentioned in the report (see www.preda.org ) were interviewed in the safety of the Preda Foundation's children's home for rescued children in Olongapo City.

When I came as a Columban Missionary from Ireland to the Philippines forty five year ago, I saw this terrible hardship of the children in jail. I set up Preda Foundation to give them a new, happier life and try to end the torture and abuse. It seems we saved hundreds but failed, so far, to change the systematic abuse of jailed children, illegal as it is.

In the Preda homes, they are recovering from their traumatic abuse and told their stories of torture to researchers from Amnesty International. Most of the children were rescued by Preda social workers and myself from government detention jails. Readers can help save many more.

 

Social services and NGOs have not remained untouched. Some have fallen into the darkness of selfish gain, dishonesty, unfaithfulness and greed. They abandon too easily and too quickly the values they vowed loudly to uphold and defend. The malaise of the world of selfishness and greed has damaged and led astray even some of those that once worked for the higher causes of defending human rights, helping the poor and restoring the dignity of the abused.

It's no wonder the faithful, virtuous good men and women are treasures to society, the hope of the nation and the true defenders of human rights and abused children. We can oppose and defeat evil by being faithful, honest, generous, kind, respectful of all and put our faith into action and keep it strong by serving and helping the needy children this Christmas and always.

New Year Hope and Happiness for 2012

The year 2011 has now passed and it's a good time for us to ask ourselves what we did in 2011 to make a difference for the good in the life of even one person. Mindful that our life is quickly passing us by, we are carried on the river of time towards our final inescapable end. We should account for our lives and the impact that that we have on other human beings, in our family, community and the world at large.


To live and not to have helped others, not to have done something significant to make this a better world has to be a life to be mourned.

A new year's resolution to do more for others could save lives, reduce hunger and disease and make the lives of those less fortunate much happier. Our lives will be more fulfilled and happier too. We will be living with a purpose, a goal and a meaning. There must be some meaning to our existence and many people find it in their faith in eternal values: like truth, justice, honesty, goodness, freedom, trust, faithfulness and love. People are living and dying for these values in the Middle East and wherever there is injustice, oppression and slavery of one kind or another.

In living out these values as best we can, we make present and personify eternal love and goodness. We can make a huge difference in the lives of others and they, in turn, can help more. For example, educate and motivate a young person and he or she will help a family out of hunger and poverty.

Having surplus money only for oneself can bring us unhappiness and can never match the experience of helping others in dire need. By generously helping a charity, we can share in the love of humanity that serves the needy and seeks no reward, no praise, asks no payback. It is love that is unconditional, self-giving, practical and effective and we can discover the greatest wealth of all - happiness.

We can see that spirit of selfless service and sacrifice throughout the world in 2011. In Syria, people bravely risk their lives to protest injustice and oppression and when they are shot down by the ruthless and genocidal regime, others risk their lives to carry the wounded out of the line of fire to get medical help. It's incredible that they are dying in this way, as many as 5000 in the past year.

In the Philippines, there are hundreds of volunteers working day and night to help the thousands of displaced survivors of the worst floods and typhoons to hit that part of Mindanao in years. Because of illegal logging, only possible with the connivance of corrupt officials, hundreds of cut logs from the mountains came roaring down the swollen rivers. They burst their banks and the logs became battering rams that smashed all before them, whole villages were leveled and washed away. The hills are long deforested and mud slides buried hundreds of people. Bodies are still being found, as many as 2000 may have been killed. But many good people are working as volunteers and others are donating money and food to help the refugees. The Columban Missionaries in Cagayan De Oro have converted a school to a refugee shelter helping house and feed 70 survivors.

Another positive selfless risk-taking for justice has been the swift action of the Philippine Secretary of Justice Leila De Lima in getting an arrest warrant blocking the departure of the Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is facing plunder and election fraud charges.

Perhaps the most significant action for justice has been bringing charges and issuance of an arrest warrants for retired Major General Jovito Palparan Jr. and his three military henchman. They are accused of assassinations of militants, social justice activists, human rights advocates and allegedly the disappearance of two University of the Philippines' students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan.

These are all positive developments in 2011 that give the people inspiration and hope that the country can be saved from the crippling criminal behavior of officials. The evidence that corruption is being reduced and the suspects brought to justice is igniting a new sense of optimism that government funds will go to help the needy and not the greedy.

Wishing all readers of this column blessings in the coming New Year!

Has Christmas Failed?

The big question that can be asked about Christmas is… has it failed? Two thousand years after the birth of the boy from Nazareth, who grew up as the son of a village carpenter, turned spiritual revolution, his heart turning message of universal rights, peace and justice has seemingly been rejected, ignored or compromised.

There is much evil in the world and we ask ourselves if we followers have done as he asked and tried to change the world? Have we been active and alive, lovingly helping our neighbors like the Good Samaritan? Have we done nothing, helped no one? “Faith without action is dead”, writes St. James in the New Testament.

In much of society materialistic pagan-like carnivals have replaced the spiritual revolution Jesus preached. Even the word Christmas has been replaced with "Season's Greetings". Keeping Christ out of Christmas is the norm. For many it is no longer a celebration of the birth of the greatest person the world has ever known but a hedonistic holiday, a time to party, eat to excess, get drunk and indulge in selfish pursuits.

This is a challenge for all followers who believe that justice and truth is more important than lies and exploitation; that love of neighbor is greater and more noble than hatred and oppression, that working for freedom for the innocent and to reduce hunger and disease is a great Christian virtue.

Christmas is the time when we renew our belief in these spiritual values and turn them into action by helping others without looking for a reward.

The child from Nazareth grew to be a prodigy of inspiration and wisdom. From his earliest years he saw in the temple the contradictions of established religion and its hypocritical compromises with the cruel despotic secular world.

Many years later he returned there as a prophet and teacher and chased away the money changers who had commercialized the house of God. He challenged the religious authorities to end abuse, to be compassionate to the poor, do justice and end oppression. They killed him for that.

Christmas is more than twinkling lights, rites and ritual hymns and Halleluiahs. Without a commitment to lasting values the Christmas celebration is no more than money making, jingle bells and a peacock in a pear tree.

Christmas is the celebration of the values that Jesus lived and died for. It's the time for us to renew our commitment to live them daily. To be one with Christ is to oppose violence, war, fear, child and women abuse, exploitation. It is planting and nurturing peace, unselfish love, kindness, justice and the dignity of the person. Many have done just that and have achieved remarkable results in the past fifty years.

These sublime Christian values, moral and spiritual, coming from the teaching and practice of Jesus of Nazareth have seeped into society. In developed countries greater recognition of the rights of poor, the hungry, sick, unemployed and homeless people is evident through welfare and social services. Despite ongoing roll backs and austerity, it's better than 100 years ago. There is much to be positive, optimistic and joyful about.

While much, much more has yet to be achieved especially in the developing world, women's and children rights and dignity are now highly recognized and protected. The conventions on human rights especially the rights of the child, women, workers and many more are big steps forward in our time and we have to continue working for their implementation around the world.

Unthinkable in the past we can now witness the International Criminal Court bringing tyrants and mass murderers to justice and convicting them for their crimes against humanity. Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was arrested recently and flown to The Hague to stand trial. Arrest warrants are out for Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir for allegedly committing war crimes in Darfur. Many more accused are facing the court.

It was Jesus of Nazareth who brought these values into the world and it started that first Christmas. It was and is a lasting success. It is our task as followers and believers to further establish, prolong and extend them to all humanity and give to as many as possible a more just and happy life.

No Greater Love

The protestors that are camping on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in London and on the streets of cities around the world are part of a protest movement that hungers and thirsts for justice and equality and an end to corruption. It began in Spain a year ago when the central plaza was occupied. That sparked the Chilean student sit-ins in Santiago demanding justice in education and then came the "Occupy Wall St." protest in Manhattan against the corrupt bankers and global financial manipulators. The inequality and ever widening gap between the poor and rich in developed and poor nations is the root of the problem. It always has been especially since the globalization of trade and neo-liberal capitalism, that is, business without a conscience, took over the world.

New sit-down and 'occupy' protest groups are springing up around the world to protest and change this. It is a reawakening or a continuation of a world-wide protest movement that began twenty years ago in the "March Against Poverty, Make Poverty History" campaigns that called for justice and debt forgiveness for poor nations. These young generations of protesters are not marching; they are sitting down and refuse to move. They are inspiring millions to act for justice and that gladdens the hearts of all who have worked all their lives to bring about global equality. The spirit lives on, the hope remains, the love of justice will overcome evil.

The protesters are expressing the worldwide disgust with corrupt politicians of the G20 nations who made promises to end poverty and suffering but did not keep them. Famine grips East Africa, food prices soar, the US oil giants are turning corn into ethyl-alcohol to fuel more cars instead of providing food for the hungry. Sex slavery thrives and human trafficking continues with impunity. The millennium goals to reduce poverty and disease and increase education will not be met. These are the challenges that must be confronted.

The Middle East is in protest and rebellion too against tyrants and their backers. some have won liberation. These are great signs of hope yet thousands have been killed in Syria as the people demand freedom.

The resurgence of that voice of compassion for the poor and the demand for global social justice and is once again challenging those most responsible for world hunger and inequality, namely the super rich bankers, currency manipulators and corrupt politicians. Nothing new in that line up of suspects but what's new is the globalization of the protest.

Thanks to the internet and web sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, the protest action is relayed around the world in a flash. The demand for a "Robin Hood" Tax is gaining worldwide popular support by which every large scale global financial transaction will pay a tax to fight global poverty, hunger and disease. It is opposed by the money moguls of Manhattan, the wizards of Wall Street that make pension funds and taxpayers money disappear into their pockets – a conjuring act of global proportions.

The "occupiers" want radical change, a peaceful revolution that will change how the world economy is managed and structured. They are calling for an end to elitist crony capitalism and a structural change so that economic power and wealth is more democratically shared and regulated and not concentrated in the hands of a greedy elite of billionaires who buy elections, and fix the legal and trading system in their favor and exclude the majority .

This is best illustrated in the way the ruling elite of the Philippines (where I have worked for forty years), are grabbing the mineral rich lands of the indigenous tribal Filipinos for destructive open-pit mining. They do it in partnership with multinational mining and investment corporations and because their family members, relatives and cronies are the lawmakers, justices, enforcers and bankers the get away with it.

The local elite in pseudo-democracies get their relatives or friends in government to approve loans of foreign borrowings or tax payers' money (seldom repaid) sign environmental clearances and mining permits. They bypass requirements like community acceptance and eliminate opponents and proceed to devastate the land with open-pit mining, the result is flooding, toxic waste, logging and land slides on ancestral lands.

Italian Missionary Father Fausto Tentorio in Mindanao and many more journalists, environmentalists, priests and pastors, have been killed for speaking out and opposing the corrupt system. There is no greater love than this than to give their lives for others. They are the true courageous Christians and while they die for the farmers and the forests, for the poor and the oppressed people those protesting in the plazas or on the footpaths are united in the same just cause. We too are part of this work for justice through prayer, action and giving support.

Risking Life Itself

There is nothing worse that can happen to dedicated Christians in the Philippines or elsewhere than to be branded as "an Enemy of the State" for exercising a prophetic role and taking a stand for the poor and the oppressed, the wretched of the earth, the unwanted, rejected and deprived whom Jesus of Nazareth said deserved to inherit the land.

Those who hunger and thirst of justice and peace are blessed in his eyes but in the eyes of the military, authorities and the ruling elite who feel threatened by the preaching of prophets in the wilderness about social justice. They are branded and marked as dangerous subversives.

Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza has taken his stand with the families of the victims who were murdered and cut down by assassins' bullets, bayonets and killing knives in the past ten years during the reign of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration. None of the assassins have been brought to Justice. The dark masters who ordered the killings have never been named. Many of those victims were pastors, preachers, ministers and members of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and other denominations including Catholics.

It was the practice at the time to mark pastors and catholic priests and lay people working to implement the social teaching of the Church as "communists" or terrorists.

Several Catholic priests and lay workers were shot and killed for their support for their people protesting the destruction of the environment by loggers and mining companies backed by powerful politicians and protected by military units.

By branding the people and their pastors as communist subversives the politicians cum businessmen could then call in the military to silence the protestors and the voice of the people.

In Midsalip, Mindanao today the courageous priest Sean Martin and Sister Patty Dinare are on trial with their brave people for holding back the rampaging mining equipment that would bulldoze their forests and fields.

Bishop Marigza has joined his name to a law suit brought by the families of the slain UCCP pastors against former President Gloria Arroyo, (who is presently a congress woman) holding her responsible for the killings when she was president and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Not all in the UCCP agrees with the bishop supporting the legal action.

Bishop Marino Inong head of the UCCP council of bishops said the council voted to take "a stand with the people", and supported Bishop Marigza and the law suit.

Far from being infiltrated by communist ideology the true Christians are most faithfully following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as found in the "Sermon on the Mount". (Lk.6:17) Here we see Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man announcing a social and spiritual transformation of society. He announced the Kingdom of God, a world where there would be justice and equality, freedom for those in unjust captivity, where the poor would no longer be hungry, where they would be blessed and inherit the land. The rich, Jesus said, would never be able to survive in such a society. "How terrible it will be for you who are rich now, you had your easy life, you are full now but will go hungry." (Lk.6:24).

None of this went down well with the rich ruling elite, chief priests and the landowning elders who were politically powerful. It was rebel talk, subversive, and threatened the status quo. It was a direct challenge to their religious domination of the Palestinian people. They decided that Jesus had to be eliminated. In the end He was arrested, tortured, put on trial, and was given the death penalty. The pastors, priests and lay Christians who followed him faithfully and preached and lived as He did and still do all over the world face similar fates.

His spiritual revolution goes on today and the strength we get from it, His friendship and presence help us work to continue His mission working for non-violent social change. These are values that Jesus brought into the world. And so we too must take our stand with those who are risking their lives making the gospel a reality in the world today.

Justice is the Hope of the Afflicted

There is perhaps nothing as painful as the smirking face of an accused mass murderer, killer and ethnic cleanser, Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb commander, almost laughing at the world that has finally brought him to judgment at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands. Munira Subasic was weeping outside the court as she saw the face of the alleged killer of her son, one of almost 7000 men and boys that were rounded up by him, General Ratko Mladic in 1995 and massacred at Srebrenica. It was a horrific act of genocide and one of many alleged crimes against humanity he is said to have ordered and even participated in. While the evidence is overwhelming, he showed no compunction, remorse, sadness, no realization of his alleged crime but military defiance as he gave salutes to the court and the media as if he was still a powerful general and not an accused criminal on trial for horrific acts of murder.

"He lied to me and took my son to his death" Munira Subasic told reporters, "I come here today to see the butcher again and to see if his eyes are bloody, because they were bloody in 1995," she said. It is a great encouragement for all who hunger and thirst for justice that the International Criminal Court has the support and the power to bring some of these accused mass murderers to trial. There are many more who pulled the triggers and may never be brought to justice but at least a few of the masterminds have. At the time, 1995, and even now, it is hard to believe that such brutal atrocities could and did happen in our modern times. But they do, in Rwanda, in Darfur, in Maguindanao, Philippines last November 2009, and today in Syria and Libya. There, innocent, non-violent protestors are being shot by the dozens every day on the streets. They are demanding the end to the Assad family dictatorship. That family has ruled Syria for more than thirty years, they are a minority group, the Alwite, the majority of the Syrian people and the rank and file of the army are Sunnis Muslims. One day, may the whole family stand trial at the Hague for their crimes against humanity.

In the Philippines, the Ampatuan family clan, led by patriarch Andal Ampatuan and his eldest son former governor Zaldy Ampatuan and eight members are among the 197 accused. They ruled the province of Maguindanao as an independent state with the blessing and support of the former discredited Arroyo administration. They are charged with the multiple murder of 57 people, among them many journalists and members of a rival clan. Their assets have been ordered frozen and when the trial proper begins it will be shown live on television to the nation. The transparency will be welcome.

These are signs of hope and will give encouragement to all especially the families of the victims, the human rights workers and all who have suffered injustice. But they are all too few and still there are killings and assassinations that are never solved and few suspects are brought to trial. But a little justice is better than none at all. We must continue to work for justice especially for the abused and murdered children like the raped and murdered child, 7 year-old Mikey Prado that I wrote about previously. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the crime reinvestigated by the national police.

There are the many young people murdered by death squads believed to be secret police. Recently, three street boys were found bound, gagged, tortured and mutilated by a suspected maverick police squad in Zamboanga City. We appeal for readers to send email, write letters to the newspapers and support the Justice Secretary De Lima in her quest for justice for victims of human rights abuses.

For Christians, seeking justice is at the heart of the mission of Jesus who called blessed all who hunger and thirst for justice. He gave himself as a living sacrifice to save the world from such evils. It is His spirit that lives on in the quest for justice by all who seek it.