blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Something to meditate in Lent Station 1: Our Last Supper Lord, all the food we eat comes from you. Nature holds these for us. Destroy nature then we eat our last meal. We recall the words of your prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread" by which environmentalists read as "The meal to come give us this day!" All comes from you, none from our hands. But the last supper brought upon our greed condemns us. Lord send your renewing spirit now. Station 2. In the garden of tears Our Muslim bretheren consider gardens and the whole of nature an image of Paradise. Have you ever been in a wild place and knew that this will be forever changed in the name of "development"? The thought of this destruction Lord, causes me anguish and I am gripped by a sense of desolation and loneliness. Those who know how nature as it really is are like Saint John the baptist, voices in the wilderness. Lord take this cup away from me. I sweat blood! Station 3. Nature is brought before t...

The end of the second semester is always a headache for professors like me. For one thing the real summer has kicked in. As someone who keeps tab on climate as part of my career responsibilities, I can probably divide the Pinoy summer into two “sub seasons”. The early summer (late Feb and early March) is when the last of the northeasters blow and the NW Pacific high pressure ridge is over us and the weather while warm is still pleasantly dry with tolerable humidity. The second is the long hot muggy summer (late March to mid May) when the easterly wave brings slight winds but high humidity. Traditionally the Holy Week is the start of the muggy summer season. Unfortunately the end of sem and graduation season falls right smack into the muggy season. The graduating students have to be given their grades and I make it a point to conduct informal “exit interviews” before informing them of their last grade as undergraduates. I have not been in the teaching business for a long time unlike ...

Ex President of the Philippines Joseph Ejercito Estrada is in hot water for riding a US Army jeep replica with a simulated mounted machine gun. The Philippine National Police is looking into filing charges in violation of the anti-gun toting law. Now this should be fodder for the Toys for Peace campaign.

This is really high summer. March 9 is high summer in the Philippines (although the start of spring in the USA and autumn in Australia) with temperatures reaching the 37 degree Celsius mark. Humidity is probably in the 80% region or more. This is also my high summer. My hemisphere should be tilted to my Sun and supposedly I am at the peak of my cerebral powers. I should be at the top of a challenging career! (oooops some friends of my own age make 4X more than I do!) But this week was marked by two sad events. Pinoy rapper Francis Magalona passed away this week after happily battling leukemia. Jeepers FrancisM was only two years older than me! Think about reminders that we are all mortal! Another shocker, a classmate from primary school whom I haven't seen in 29 years I found on Facebook. He told me he had a stroke quite recently. Nonetheless my birthday cake by tradition has only one candle! Well at least that has less carbon impact on the atmosphere! LOL! :-) Anyway everytime I ...

The genius of the Catholic Church is that it can update its practices and expressions of belief no matter how long that may take. Paradoxically the Benedictine papacy has made great strides in recovering the traditions that Vatican II lost. But in this context, we read that Roman Catholic bishops in Italy want that there should be a fasting from electronic gadgets for Lent. And this includes SMS texting and iPods! Earlier on the Vatican released an updated list of the Seven Deadly Sins. Since I have a bit of traditionalist streak, I would prefer to use the old appellation "The Seven Cardinal Sins" :-) The Philippines has had one and we seem to be haunted by him still. The new list has drug trafficking, environmental destruction and obscene wealth on top of the old luxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia ira etc. The public saw this as a novel attempt by the Benedictine church to remind the planet that sins still matter. Some in public were made to reflect and some ridiculed t...

I was in Cebu for a meeting when I heard about the tragedy that befell Ateneo grade school pupil Amiel Alcantara on the school's parking lot last Tuesday. The boy was run over by a van driven by woman who was picking her son from the school. The boy was declared dead on arrival in a nearby hospital. The tragedy was made even more disturbing because it was witnessed by the boy's siblings and the nanny who pushed the other kids from the rushing van. She was also injured. The incident brought back memories of a loss we experienced 30 years ago in March 1979. One of my classmates named Renato drowned in a friend's pool on his birthday. The death was an accident and my whole elementary school was in shock. The teachers had to go on counselling mode and they told the children that no one wanted this tragedy and that it was an accident. No one is to blame not even the kids who attended the birthday party. The teachers said that the best way we can deal with it is to learn from th...