The day I met a saint

Philippine Daily Inquirer

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As the world awaits the beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1, I remember my unforgettable encounter with this great man
POPE BENEDICT XVI recently announced the beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1. It is an event eagerly awaited by Filipinos and by all Christendom. The late Polish head of the Catholic Church was definitely the most admired and loved Pope of the modern era. His affection for the Philippines, the only Christian country in Asia, was demonstrated when he visited the country twice, something no other Pope had done before.

Beatification is the last in a usually long and tedious process before a person is canonized or declared a saint by the Vatican. Pope John Paul II’s beatification was announced almost immediately after the first miracle attributed to the late Pope had been declared authentic by medical specialists. It was reported that a Catholic nun suffering from Parkinson’s Disease was cured after praying to Pope John Paul II. Doctors declared that the healing could not be explained medically.

Only one more miracle is waiting to be authenticated before Pope John Paul II is finally declared a saint. But in Poland, people have been venerating the late Pope like a saint since he died. I witnessed this myself two years ago. I held a seminar at the Pope John Paul II Museum in Warsaw, where a large bronze statue stands at the entrance. I saw people lighting candles, kneeling and praying before the statue with great reverence and devotion.

The announcement of Pope John Paul II’s beatification made me recall my unforgettable experience meeting this great Pope at the Vatican in 1986. I was one of several foreign speakers invited to give a lecture during an international conference on alternative healing in Milan, Italy. More than 600 delegates attended.

After the conference, where I spoke about faith healing and the phenomenon of psychic surgery in the Philippines, our host asked if we would want to meet the Pope at the Vatican. We of course said yes, although I thought he was just joking. It was too good to be true.

There were 15 of us who flew to Rome. At a special hall where the Pope greets thousands of people, about six of the foreign speakers, including myself, were given special passes to talk to the Pope after the ceremony.

Before the Pope appeared, there were thousands of people from all over the world who waited to see and hear him. He greeted each of the delegations gathered there, and that took about an hour. As the Pope greeted each group, they would excitedly shout and clap their hands to acknowledge his greeting. I was only half listening when the Pope said, “And we would also like to greet those gathered here who are doing psychotronic research, for they are also doing their part to help humanity.” I found myself spontaneously clapping and shouting “Viva il Papa!” together with the rest of my delegation.

I was completely taken by surprise by the Pope’s greeting. I didn’t realize that the Pope believed in psychic research, because here in the Philippines, the Catholic priests (with a few exceptions) look at my work with great suspicion, if not disapproval. So that statement by no less than the supreme head of the Catholic Church was a welcome vindication for me.

The next part had the Pope giving special audience to selected groups. We were given passes to go to the front of the big hall to talk to the Pope for a few seconds. The other members of our group were all trying to catch his attention, so I shouted, “Your Holiness, I come from the Philippines.” When the Pope heard this, he turned towards me and approached me smiling. I felt his energy so strongly, I almost went into a trance. I was holding a copy of the German edition of my book about the faith healers of the Philippines. I told the Pope, “I would like to give you this book that I wrote about the faith healers of the Philippines.”

The Pope acknowledged the gift and said, “Faith is what we need most in the world today.” And when the Pope saw the cover of my book, showing a faith healer performing psychic surgery on a patient, he automatically made the sign of the cross on the book, as though blessing the patient. Then he handed the book to an aide beside him as he turned to other people in the front row.

As we were leaving, I saw a good number of sick people, some of them in wheelchairs, who were lining up for healing, and the Pope started healing each one of them by blowing and laying his hands on them, just like what Jesus Christ did.

My meeting with this great Pope who will soon be declared a saint lasted only a few seconds, but I will never forget the awesome experience. I never imagined I would ever meet a saint in my lifetime, and I have two pictures with him to prove it.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

The devil and his poisons

By Simeon Dumdum Jr.
Cebu Daily News

Vercingetorix, who had united the Gallic tribes against theRomans, almost routed the latter by attacking the weakest part of their fortifications—the upper camp that lay on a steep hill on the north side, which the Romans could not include in their defense works. Caesar had personally to lead the last reserves into battle in order to turn the tide.

Being the great military strategist that he was, Julius Caesar needed no reminders that an army is only as tough as its frailest flank. Or, as the saying goes, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

As in military combat, so it is in spiritual warfare. The devil knows Latin, and has read Caesar’s “De Bello Gallico.” The devil mounts his attack against the most vulnerable area of a person'scharacter, choosing to do this at a time when the person is least vigilant.

Luke tells us that Jesus spent 40 days in the desert without eating. We may never know the intensity of Jesus’ hunger after that, but the devil saw that it was intense enough for him to decide to strike there. And so the devil told Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” (The devil could just have said “turn the stone into bread” instead of “tell the stone to become bread,” a more dramatic line—if the hoofed one lacked anything, it was not style.) The devil hit Jesus where he thought he was most defenseless—the stomach. But Jesus turned the tables on him, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

Thomas Aquinas remarks that the devil tempts man by feeding his intellect and sense. Aside from inviting Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit, the devil assured them that they would acquire such knowledge as would make them like God.

Using the same pattern, the devil first reminded Jesus of his power and status. He began inducing him to satisfy his hunger by saying, “If you are the Son of God…”

Man sins with his mind and will rather than with his sense, although they work in synergy, the latter being the servant of the former. William Carlos Williams makes theft the subject of a poem (“This Is Just to Say”), and yet, because of the lack of malice in the act, we look at it with more amusement than condemnation:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold
The devil makes for a flaw in a person’s character, more than in his physical makeup. The fact that a person has an enormous appetite matters less to the tempter than his greed or pride.

And so, where morally he is the least protected, there he should expect the infernal Vercingetorix to concentrate his attack, bringing forth from his camp the other-worldly equivalent of such weapons as Caesar enumerated—“long hooks movable penthouses, mural hooks, and other things…”

By enduring the devil’s temptations, Jesus puts across to us, not just the inevitability of the devil's inducements (by reason of human freedom), but also the need, with God's help, to hold fast and not to yield.

The inscriptions on the ancient medal of St. Benedict include “IVV” (Ipse Venea Vibas), which is Latin for—and this, in case of temptation or spiritual danger, we can say to the devil—“Drink your own poisons!”

In a sense, Augustine considers temptation necessary. “Man would have no prospect of any special praise,” he says, “if he were able to lead a good life simply because there was none to persuade him to lead an evil life…”

By Benjamin Pimentel
INQUIRER.net

Confronted by the rage over the way he humiliated a six-year old boy, Willie Revillame & Co. apologized.

Or did they?

Well, if they had stopped after the second sentence of their press release, it would have been a decent enough way of saying they were sorry—“We wish to stress that there was never any intention to humiliate or abuse Jan-Jan or any contestant on the show.” Period.

But they kept on going. They tried to spin it some more by claiming that the boy featured on Revillame’s show “appeared to be sad or even in tears, not because he was being forced to dance, but because he felt the dance was ‘serious’ and he was playing a role.”

Are they serious? Or as a barkada of mine would say, “’Chong, nagkakabolahan na.”
And the so-called apology was proven to be even more bogus shortly after it was issued. Having already subjected the boy to an agonizing appearance on his show, Revillame then brought the whole family for yet another round of humiliation.

And again, Jan-Jan wasn’t smiling. Again, he was in tears!
But Revillame just doesn’t get it. He simply cannot understand that there’s a huge difference between giving people a chance to shine, and shining a harsh, cruel spotlight on their poverty, and their struggle to survive, even their desperation, for cheap laughs and for ratings.

Still, I’d argue—and some may disagree—that the outrage and the activism that led to the bogus apology paid off.

No, shows like Willing Willie and others on other networks will continue to cash in on the poverty of many Filipinos. Yes, children will likely still be part of that equation.

But I bet people like Revillame, including those from other networks, will now think twice before featuring another little macho dancer. Though he and his producers may think it’s cute, they probably would hesitate to have a little girl doing a pole dance as part of the program.

So those who took the time and effort to speak out on this issue (including my friend Peachy Rallonza Bretana who helped lead the Facebook campaign) can claim a small, yet significant, victory. For there's now some kind of line, even if it’s still blurry, that TV networks know they must not cross when it comes to children.

This much was evident on the show in which Revillame featured the boy’s parents and sister. Egged on by his father, Jan-Jan looked set to do a Michael Jackson routine, complete with the crotch-grabbing.

Oh, you can see it on Revillame’s face that he wanted that on his show! But then, you see him hesitating. Eventually, he stops the boy from doing the dance.

The king of tasteless Pinoy TV backed down!

There’s another more important reason why the outrage over what happened to Jan Jan was significant: It made more Filipinos aware of the issues and even the problems related to children performing on national television.

It certainly shook me up.
For I must confess that, I’ve been so used to seeing these kinds of TV segments, that when I first saw the infamous clip, it took a while for me to be affected by it.

In fact, if Jan-Jan had been smiling, if he had shown even the slightest hint that he was enjoying what he was doing, I probably would have let it go. I probably would have just tuned it out. Like many of us, I’ve been so desensitized when it comes to children on Pinoy noontime TV shows, that I typically don’t pay attention anymore.

But it was hard not to be affected by the pained look on the little boy’s face—and by his tears. (Certainly part of the reason is that I have two sons of my own, including one about Jan-Jan’s age.)

I actually was even expecting Revillame to have enough sense to put a stop to the excruciating scene, by saying, “Okay Jan-Jan, you’ve done enough. Let’s move on to the next contestant.”
If he had done that, I think people would not have reacted as strongly as they did. But he didn’t. Revillame kept on going. And going. And going.

There’s one point raised by Revillame’s defenders I agree with: It’s not just his show. It’s not just the network which has embraced him. Other shows, and other networks and institutions treat children this way.
Which is why the Facebook-based activism that emerged from this controversy could serve as a first step toward addressing the issue of how should children be treated and portrayed on TV and media in general. It could be starting point for that deeper conversation.

For the truth is children singing, dancing, performing, entertaining has been part of our culture for generations. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

But perhaps we have to begin talking more about why there’s a very big difference between boys and girls dancing the Macarena or the Electric Slide, or singing pop tunes at a fiesta or at a tita’s or lolo’s birthday party—and a boy in tears pretending to be a little macho dancer on national TV

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Redundant, inefficient, cumbersome, useless- why our airport procedures don’t

By Antonio A. Oposa and Anna R. Oposa
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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It is not the processes that need strengthening, rather the management of our civil aviation systems
This letter, edited for lack of space, was sent by the authors to Jose Angel A. Honrado, General Manager, Manila International Airport Authority. Authors’ e-mails—a.oposa@gmail.com aroposa@gmail.com)

WE ARE staunch advocates of local tourism. We strongly believe responsible eco-tourism is a good driver of sustainable economic development. If there is anything we Filipinos can be proud of, it is the unparalleled physical beauty of our country, and the inner beauty of our people.

But those of us who travel extensively know how cumbersome, inefficient and opportunistic our travel systems are, particularly our airports and seaports.

Take the case of the gateways of the country: our airports. There has been a marked improvement in the physical facilities of our airports, for which we congratulate those responsible for them. However, there is so much that needs to be done to upgrade our services and make our airports truly world-class.

We invite your attention to the tedious process of checking in and out of our airports—the first and last stop of all local and international travelers. The objective of a good airport is to make travel procedures as seamless and efficient as possible. Instead, ours have become perfect examples of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and what airport systems should NOT be.

‘Checkpoint mentality’

Indeed, it is also an example of the “checkpoint mentality” of our government.

Note:

1. There are security guards who pretend to conduct a cursory check on the entering cars. They wave their flashlights in the direction of the glove compartment and pretend to look inside the trunk. In reality, they only waste the time of the passenger and create a garrison mentality.

2. In the entry doors of the airport, there is another guard who checks the ticket and ID. At this point begins unnecessary waiting lines.

3. There is an X-ray at the main door. While there are often a number of X-ray machines, only one or two are open, thus creating another extended queue and further delay.

4. At the Naia-3, yet another guard checks the ticket and ID before the check-in counter.

5. After checking in, we proceed to another line to pay an exorbitant amount of P200 as “terminal fee.”

In all our travels around the world, we notice that only the Philippine airports collect a terminal fee. If we are so impoverished and must collect this terminal fee, can we not incorporate it in the price of the ticket? This would considerably ease the flow and movement of passengers at our airports. Institutions such as airline companies and the Naia administration office are better placed to do the collection and remittances of large amounts of funds.

But that is not all. After paying this senseless terminal fee, we proceed to line up again for another officer, called the Inspector Verifier, who will cut off the stub from the receipt of the terminal fee. This is especially true at Naia-3 and Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

6. Then, after this, there is another X-ray machine. Compared to other airports in the world, ours is the only X-ray machine that checks hand-carried baggage. Even in security-conscious US, there is only one X-ray check, and that is right before the pre-departure area.

7. Then the final check right before boarding. This can be reduced to only three stages: check-in, X-ray and body check before entering the pre-departure area, and then at final boarding. This is the standard used by most airports.

Additional checkpoints

However, the process for international travel at the Naia and PAL Centennial Airports is even worse because of the additional checkpoints:

1. Checking of boarding pass before entry into immigration area;

2. Payment of the exorbitant terminal fee of P750, or something like $13.45, as if people walk around with that exact change in their pockets. Worse, one cannot even pay with a credit card;

3. Immigration;

4. Checking of boarding passes before being allowed to enter the pre-departure gate;

5. Another check of baggage before boarding.

At the international arrival area, even if we have nothing to declare, we are made to fill up a form, which is checked by a customs officer. Part of the stub is then taken by another customs officer.

Also, ours is the only airport that still checks on the bag tags—courtesy of more security guards at the exit door.

Most of these procedures are not only cumbersome and downright stupid, they also create an impression that we are just putting hoops to make it difficult for tourists. We only create meaningless jobs for unemployed protégés of politicians or bureaucrats who have nothing better to do. This is a waste of people’s hard-earned money.

We request that your good office take the initiative to review and streamline this process. These cumbersome and repetitious procedures have not made our airport and air travel any more secure. Notwithstanding all these, our airports have been downgraded for their lack of security.

Disturbing news

It is not the processes that need strengthening, rather the management of our civil aviation systems. In the news recently was a disturbing piece of information: There was damage in some aviation equipment, and the replacement part had to be “cannibalized” or removed from existing, likewise damaged aviation equipment.

One must ask: Where is all the money collected from the terminal fees going? Do they go to paying the security guards and personnel placed in our airports to make our lives and travel difficult?

In almost all of the airports of the world, there is no “terminal fee” collected. If there is, it is usually incorporated in the ticket.

In this respect, may we respectfully request for a financial report from your good office as to the uses of the terminal fee collected from passengers in the last five years. Despite all the monies received, as of January 2011, none of the three airports in Manila had free and consistent wireless Internet access.

The pre-departure area at Naia -1 did not even have working electrical outlets. The restrooms are still small and badly maintained. The Mactan-Cebu Airport, meanwhile, recently installed sensor-type flushing mechanisms in their water closets, a water-wasteful technology. But when checked last Jan. 22, none of them worked!

We also do not have seats allocated for the handicapped in pre-departure areas. In other international airports, there are seats near the gates for the handicapped.

Overacting

While other airports around the world try to institutionalize seamless airport procedures, we are overacting to try to create a perception of security. This is not a mark of our ability to put in place effective security measures. Rather, it is a mark of idiotic redundancy, utter inefficiency, and useless red tape.

We end up making ourselves look ridiculous. It creates the impression that we live in a garrison state, paranoid to the nth degree, and/or are promoting unnecessary red tape right in the gateways.

It is a poor reflection on our people. It is also an example of a very Third World mentality—the very impression we are trying to change as a country and as a people.

Our airport officials know how utterly ridiculous these procedures are, but refuse to improve them for reasons known only to them.

There are so many other things we need to improve to make our country travel-friendly, among them having clean toilets, honest cab drivers and traffic decongestion. But if there is one area we can work on right away to make travel to and within the Philippines easy, convenient, passenger-visitor-friendly and seamless, it is our airports—the very face of our beautiful and beloved country.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

DSWD chastises TV host over segment with crying 6-yr-old boy

By Leila B. Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—It was a clear form of child abuse, said Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman Monday.

In a stern letter to TV 5 chair Manny Pangilinan, Soliman castigated TV host Willie Revillame for making a six-year-old boy gyrate “distastefully” in exchange for money on his show “Willing Willie.”

Soliman noted that Revillame taunted the dancing boy, nicknamed “Jan-Jan,” as tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Persuading a little child to dance sexy adult dances in exchange for a measly sum, while he is being laughed at and ridiculed will definitely traumatize the child,” Soliman said in her letter.

She said what happened to the boy was child abuse and would not be tolerated by her or the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

She said the DSWD would get in touch with the boy’s family to determine the impact of the incident on the child and determine if he and his parents needed counseling or stress debriefing.

Soliman asked Pangilinan to rebuke Revillame for his “insensitive and deplorable actions,” and not to allow young children to appear in Willing Willie and other shows that cash in on the plight of the poor.

She said that the young boy’s rights were clearly violated.

“There are limits to children appearing on television, and clearly, your 12 March 2011 episode did not respect the rights of the child and traumatized the six year-old boy,” she said.

She further expressed concern that Willing Willie was cashing in on the poor. According to her, “there is no need to rob them of their dignity in the name of uplifting their condition.”

Inquirer columnist Cathy Babao Guballa also criticized Revillame after he prodded the clearly uncomfortable boy to continue dancing.

“How low will Revillame go to please his audience, and how pathetic and desensitized have we become as a people—unfeeling to allow a grown, middle-aged man torment and torture a poor, helpless child?” she said in her column.

She also noted—to her horror—that the studio audience seemed to have enjoyed the show.

In a statement Monday, Willie Revillame, the producers of “Willing Willie” and TV5 said they “sincerely and deeply apologize for the segment of the show featuring 6-year-old Jan-Jan which viewers may have found offensive or in bad taste.”

“We wish to stress that there was never any intention to humiliate or abuse Jan-Jan or any contestant on the show. ‘

Willing Willie’ is a program that was conceptualized to bring joy and hope and shine the spotlight on ordinary Filipinos. The program aims to provide a venue for everyone to show their talents, tell their stories and make their dreams come true. This is the thrust of everyone involved in the program, particularly its host, Willie Revillame,” the statement said.

“Like most contestants on the show, Jan-Jan, accompanied by his aunt, joined the program to showcase his talent and play in a game segment in the hope of bringing home big prizes. He has performed in the past in school programs and mall contests, and his performance in ‘Willing Willie’ was completely voluntary and with the blessings of his parents,” it added.

The statement said the boy “appeared to be sad or even in tears, not because he was being forced to dance, but because he felt the dance was ‘serious’ and he was playing a role. He did not want to smile because of his missing upper front teeth and because of the presence on the set of former basketball player Bonel Balingit whom Jan-Jan thought was a scary ‘giant.’”

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer