IN HIS APRIL 18 commentary, Fr. Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI deplored the imbroglio in the peace process in Mindanao.  Who will disagree? From a tragedy, the Mindanao drama has become a comedy.
But the element of comedy has always been there.  Since Day One, the peace process has been saddled with inconsistencies. When acts and actors [...]

IN THE MAY election last year, priest-on-leave Eddie Panlilio, without a party and millions to finance his campaign, won as governor of Pampaga against rich and politically entrenched opponents. His was a historic feat — the first that a member of the clergy dislodged traditional politicians from power with the genuine support of the poor. [...]

WILL IT happen to us? By “Us”, I mean “we, Filipino Catholics”. The question refers to the possibility of the crisis the Catholic Church in the United States is now facing happening to the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
The crisis is manifested in the closure or merger of parishes, the closure of Catholic schools or [...]

Second of Two Parts/Read Part 1
WE LIVE IN a great paradox: Our leaders breed, not eradicate, corruption; they fuel, not douse, dissent.  So the Moro rebellion and communist insurgency have flourished; the radical Left, the militant civil society and the political opposition are ganging up against the government.
Alienation fuelled by injustice is the root of [...]

First of two parts
IS THE PHILIPPINES destined to be in eternal crisis? The Moro rebellion and the communist insurgency have defied five presidents – two of them longest-reigning. Multi-level corruption has defied solution.  And they will most likely continue defying presidents after 2010.
Flashback

From President Manuel A. Roxas to President Diosdado P. Macapagal (1946-1965) were 20 [...]

FROM KING PYRRHUS of Epirus in Ancient Greece derived Pyrrhic, meaning “achieved at excessive cost” – associated with the king’s very costly victory over the Romans, thus, the expression “Pyrrhic victory.”
From the Martial Law Philippines First Lady Imelda R. Marcos derived Imeldific, meaning “extravagant and excessive”; also, “penchant for grandeur – the true, the beautiful, [...]

ON “CLERIC”: Since when has a Muslim religious leader become “cleric”? Item: “Cleric tortured in military camp – kin” (INQUIRER.net, March 24). This is my latest encounter with the usage. I’ve seen this usage a number of times in other national and community papers.
The dictionary is clear: “cleric” means “member of the clergy”.  And, “clergy” [...]

THE BISHOPS appear to be one in confirming the unity of CBCP. Archbishop Quevedo, asserting that the “oft-mentioned ‘divided hierarchy’ is false”, said that “CBCP consists of 115 Bishops, 100 of them active voting members. Less than ten of the 100 are ‘pro-resign’. Such numbers do not make a ‘divided’ CBCP.”
But Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos [...]

NO TALK, NO MISTAKE; less talk, less mistakes; more talk, more mistakes.
This is a very popular Chinese adage.  By not heeding this, some Bishops gave impressions strengthening perceptions that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines is pro-Arroyo, inconsistent and divided in their pastoral statement, “Seeking the Truth, Restoring Integrity.”
As a collegial body, the [...]

THE CATHOLIC Bishops have intervened again as pastors as the Philippines is as ever in a state of “restlessness and confusion”, facing “a crisis of truth and the pervading cancer of corruption”. They, in their Pastoral Statement, said: “We must seek the truth and we must restore integrity.”
The search must be “relentless and determined, and the way [...]