Green Christmas

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Many are familiar with Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,”   especially its rendition by Bing Crosby. It is an old Christmas carol, going as far back as 1942, yet it is still sung. But is there still a serene white Christmas? In our time, in many places there are no longer snows on Christmas. Either they come too early or too late. Or if there be one, it is no longer a serene white Christmas but a blizzard. All this is due to climate change. Would it be better to wish and dream for a green Christmas first so that the white Christmas may come back?

What is a green Christmas? We may also call it an ecological Christmas. We are called to have a change of lifestyle if we are to avert disastrous wayward weather conditions. This call for change of lifestyle also means a change in the way we behave at Christmas time.

Let not the culture of consumerism eat up our Christmas. The more we buy, the more we throw away. So let us buy less. Oh, the many useless things that are sold and bought during Christmas. Yes, people have more money, what with all the bonuses, the 13^th month paychecks and the aguinaldos people receive. A lot of these monies unfortunately end up buying useless things and useless gifts. They end up in the cupboard or in the trash can!

Even the food we consume during this season are not nutritious, and even harmful to our health. Thus blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar levels shoot up, and in the process we consume more medicines. Many traditional Christmas foods are harmful, like ham, cheese, cakes, lechon and chocolates. A green Christmas can also mean green leafy vegetables for our Christmas meals. Have we tried this?

How many plastics litter our streets, parks and malls during the Christmas season? So much money is spent on Christmas wrappers alone, and many glittering ones are non-biodegradable! Plastic toys end up in the dumpsites soon after Christmas.

Then follows the New Year celebration with the smell of obnoxious powder from fireworks. The streets are then littered with firecracker wrappers on New Year Day. Another set of harmful foods follows for the media noche meals.

So what would a green Christmas be? Let it be a Christmas moderate in spending and shopping, but more of togetherness in activities and sharing with families and neighbors. It would be good to cook together, play together and pray together. Companionship is what we need, and not things. Instead of watching TV on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve for the countdowns being done in New York, London or the Vatican, why not laugh together in the family, tell stories of what happened the past year and share one another’s dreams and wishes for the coming year? These catching up with one another’s lives will be etched more in our memories than the antics they do in the TV shows half way across the globe!

Let us be more creative in celebrating a green Christmas and not allow our celebrations to be determined by sales and TV shows. It does not take much, and it does not cost much, to be happy and contented together. No one were happiest on the first Christmas other than Mary and Joseph. They had no light. They had no food. They did not have the comfort of a bed or even a warm room. There were no sounds. In simplicity, poverty and silence, they were most happy. They had a new life with them. They had Jesus with them. Theirs was truly a green Christmas!

Water Privatization

THE front pages of newspapers in the past two weeks speak about the rants—and threats—of Duterte against water concessionaires Maynilad and Manila Water. Last October he threatened to have government take over the control of the water distribution. He even wanted to file plunder, corruption and economic sabotage cases against officials who negotiated the deal back in 1997. Then there were talks to rescind the contracts. Now it has become milderk—to renegotiate the contract to take away the alleged onerous provisions. Among these is the requirement for the government to pay for the companies' business losses while prohibiting it from interfering in fixing the water rates. Based on these provisions, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in Singapore ordered the government to pay Manila Water 7.4 billion pesos for losses stemming from rejected water rate hikes back in 2015. In 2017 the government was also ordered to reimburse 3.4 billion pesos for Maynilad’s losses. In total that would be a whopping 10.8 billion pesos! Duterte fumed and categorically said that the government will not pay! Besides, the deal is claimed to be anomalous because the contracts were extended to 2037, a decade before the original expiration of the agreements in 2022.

The Ramos administration signed Republic Act No. 8041, or the National Water Crisis Act, in 1997, which paved the way for full privatization of the capital’s water sector. For the past two decades, Manila Water, owned by the Ayalas, and Maynilad, originally owned by the Lopezes but now by the Pangilinans, have dominated Metro Manila’s water supply under concessionaire deals with the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS). The MWSS is the government agency tasked to ensure a stable and adequate supply of water. Ayala’s Manila Water has control over Metro Manila’s East Zone, which covers 23 cities and municipalities, including the business districts of Makati and administrative city of Quezon City. Panglinan’s Maynilad, meanwhile, controls the so-called West Zone, which covers 17 cities and municipalities, including large parts of old Manila. Back in 1997 the deal was hailed as one of the most successful large-scale privatizations in the developing world. Today the Metropolis has the world’s most expensive water utility service. What has gone wrong?

Yes, there may have been corruption along the way. Both concessionaires may have been very inefficient too. But what is deeply wrong is the privatization of basic services. Water is one basic service, so also is transportation and electricity. It is no brainer to see that the private business companies do not primary engage in business to serve the people. They do business to gain profit. That is the raison d’etre of business.  If they do serve, the service given may just be a by-product of their business. On the other hand, government has the mandate to serve. It is supported by the people’s taxes so that it may serve, especially the basic services that the people need. The government engage in basic services not to gain but to serve. The people pay them for this. So why give basic services to private business? The reason usually given is that private business is more efficient than government. Should this really be so? Government too can be efficient as we see in many countries. Private business can also be inefficient, and when they are, it is at the cost of the people, as our experience now with our metro-rail systems, our electricity, and our water rates and services. The services are poor, and very poor; and the rates are high, very high. Where is government in this? Is it there to support big business or to serve the people?

Simbang Gabi

For Filipino Catholics, there is no Christmas without the Simbang Gabi. Simbang Gabi is a Filipino custom that has been forged centuries ago to prepare for Christmas Day by a novena of dawn masses. Originally, the nine-day masses were done only as dawn, as early at four o’clock in the morning, hence the name “Misa de Gallo,” literally the “mass of the cock,” that is, at the time that the cocks start crowing. This started in rural Philippines of those early times. Farmers woke up early and before they went to the fields, they first attended the Holy Mass. This custom also has a Marian motif. It is a devotion to Mother Mary as she expects the birth of her son. During Martial Law in the seventies, when curfew was imposed, in the urban areas they started to have anticipated Simbang Gabi masses in the evening before the curfew struck. In metropolis many people now prefer to go to mass in the evening to wait for the evening rush hour traffic to ease up. For many Filipinos overseas, they cannot have masses in the early morning because of the cold or other logistical reasons, so they have the Simbang Gabi in the late afternoon. Filipinos have adapted, but they must have the Simbang Gabi – the 9 days of masses in preparation for Christmas.

Nowadays many see the Simbang Gabi as an act of sacrificial love to complete the 9 days. It is really a sacrifice to wake up early or to go home late because it is done daily, especially for many working people, who have regular jobs. Thus it truly becomes a “Misa de Aguinaldo.” It is their gift to Jesus.  So they are happy to do it. They feel closer to the Lord and they are satisfied to do something special for him.

In the Church we find the Simbang Gabi a unique opportunity to enliven the faith of the people. Imagine, to have all our churches bursting at the seams with so many people praying for 9 consecutive days! When the preaching is done in the proper way, the people grow more in the knowledge of the faith listening to Bible readings and homilies. There are many people who do not regularly go to church but they make it a point to come to the Simbang Gabi masses. So, every year their faith is given a boost. Of course, not all have the good intention to really worship the Lord and pray. There are many who go to these masses because of the barkada, or because they want to watch the girls, or the boys. But God can make use of these mundane reasons to touch their hearts. Any small effort to draw close to God can have beneficial effects and can be an occasion for grace to enter their lives.

Many customs have grown because of the Simbang Gabi tradition. There are the bells that toll joyfully in the wee hours of the morning. The Christmas lanterns or parols and the Christmas lights regale the sight of people as they come to church in the darkness of the night or in the early morning. There are the native foods that await the church goers as they go home, like the puto bumbong, the bibingka or the hot chocolate drink that are now associated with Christmas. These have become added attractions for young and old which draw them to continue this practice. Indeed, Simbang Gabi has become a cultural feature for many.

The challenge for the institutional church is how to make the most out of this practice to bring people to faith in the Son of God who became one of us, the Immanuel. So, although the Advent season is one of the heaviest work load of the priests, we make it a point to attend to the needs of the people. There is already a thirst for God that is occasioned by this tradition. We do our best to quench this thirst by feeding the people well with good homilies and meaningful liturgical celebrations.

  

So Whimsical! So Insecure!

When the breaking news came out on Sunday night that President Duterte has fired VP Leni as the drug czar, the first thoughts that raced to my mind was: How whimsical! How insecure!

 It was uncalled for when he challenged VP Leni to take over his flagship war on drugs when she bared it as a failure in an interview. Stung by the criticism, he challenged her to take over the program for six months and be the drug czar herself if she could do better. He even appointed her to the position as a co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) on October 28. To give her time to do the job, he said that she could stay on for the rest of his term as president. And now, barely three weeks from that appointment he fired her. Is he leading or is he being led by his whims? He claims that he does not trust her. Why did he appoint her in the first place? Maybe he misjudged her wisdom and her courage. She took on the challenge, and with energy! Now he backs off when she is already making strides.

Or is Duterte insecure? He claims that she had not done anything. But no, she was fast. In just two weeks VP Leni had talked to the police, and to various groups to get information. She is known to be a person who is in touch with the ground, going to those in the fringes of society. She is consultative, so she spoke to US and UN officials who are into this problem. Illegal drugs are not just a problem of the Philippines. It is a world-wide problem needing cooperation from all, which Duterte does not do. He is closed minded. He thinks his solution is the only one, even though he cannot show any success except the body counts of those he and his minions have killed. He has not eliminated the drug problem in his native Davao City in the 20 years that he had employed his technique of using Death Squads, nor does he succeed in his present ways in spite of thousands who have been liquidated, most of whom are the poor and the defenseless.

Yes, Duterte is insecure, especially of women of grit. This is shown by the way he keeps Sen. Leila de Lima in jail with trumped up charges, by the heavy-handed handling of Sr. Patricia Fox, by the unjust ouster of Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno. Now he could not stand VP Leni Robredo to be in his cabinet. So he back-pedalled by claiming that her appointment does not include a cabinet position. She is co-chairman and her co-chair would not share with her information which is vital to fight the drug menace. What are they afraid of? That the skeletons in their closet would be seen? People have long been suspecting that there is something fishy in Duterte’s version of War on Drugs. This suspicion is being confirmed by this secrecy. What they are keeping are not state secrets but secrets of Duterte!

I pity Duterte’s spokespersons. They are appearing ridiculous to make sense of the whimsical moves of their patron. And because they are whimsical, they are unpredictable and illogical. How can one put logic in what is illogical?  But we, can we trust a leader who is so whimsical and so insecure?

Protest Against Red-Tagging

EVERYONE has a right to his/her good name. If this is true for each individual person, it is more so for groups and institutions. To accuse a whole institution in public, and much more, in an official government hearing, and by no less than a government body which is supposed to be reputable, without irrefutable evidence, is the height of malice. One cannot just name-drop an institution because institutions have many supporters, self-less workers, and admirable activities. Red-tagging is one such practice, and it is being done by the military and police institutions to persons and institutions who do not toe the line of the government, and who expose their human rights abuses, or who empower people to speak out against projects that do not promote the good of the ordinary people and the environment.

On November 5, Major General Reuben S. Basiao, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Department of National Defense (DND) gave a briefing on the security situation of the country to the Committee on National Defense in a committee hearing in Congress. Present in the hearing was no less than Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. It is an official affair. There was a presentation of “front organizations” that provide fund generation to the CPP-NDF-NPA which is considered a Communist Terrorist Group (CTG) by the government.

  

The unfounded inclusion of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) in the list of the alleged “communist front organizations” is a threat not only to particular Christian churches but to the role of religion in society in general.

NCCP is one of the leading faith-based and humanitarian organizations in the country that respond to the needs and concerns of people. Its social action arm is committed to delivering humanitarian aid and social services especially to the least and most abandoned. The NCCP is made up of mainline Protestant Churches which stand firm promoting peace and unity, the protection of the dignity of life, and the respect for human rights in their proclamation of Christ as Saviour and Lord.

Among the more than 50 organizations and institutions, both local and international, which the military claims “wittingly or unwittingly” aid the CTG are also reputable groups that work in the country to help the poor and the victims of natural calamities, especially Typhoon Yolanda. They named the Diocesan Social Action Center of Kalibo, Caritas Australia, Caritas Austria, Caritas Belgium, Caritas Switzerland, Save the Children Foundation, Bread for the World, Oxfam International, Swedish Red Cross, Mercy Relief, just to name a few of the more prominent ones.

It is inherent to the churches and the aid organizations to provide help to everyone who is in need especially in times of disaster, regardless of political or religious beliefs. We do not ask a victim of a calamity if he or she is a communist before giving assistance.

Faith-based institutions, and humanitarian and development organizations, should be encouraged and supported by the government. They are doing what the government cannot do, or they do better, faster and with less wastage than what the government is mandated to do.

Stop the practice of red-tagging! If their intelligence, if they have one, indicate that a person or a group is engaged in illegal activities, then bring them to court rather than flaunting their name as supporting communist terrorists. Everyone has a right to their good name!

Support Needed

(Photo courtesy of CHARLIE VILLEGAS/OVP)

President Duterte has formally offered Vice-President Leni Robredo the post to be the co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD). This means that she would  share with Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino the task of the anti-drug czar. Many people doubt the sincerity of the administration in this offer. It may be Duterte’s way of washing his hands at the failure of his own version of anti-drug campaign. It may even be a way to show to the people how incapable VP Leni is, because to stop the drug problem is an impossible task in such a short time. The government may even block her efforts along the way to prevent her from making any headway. There is so much mistrust in this government that people cannot help make conjectures.

VP Leni is well aware of the problems, as she herself stated in her acceptance speech. She said she is ready for all these just to stop the killings of the current model of drug war. In this her purpose is laudable; each human life is important. Furthermore, it should be clear by now, after two and a half years of killings of lowly people, having victimized about 6,000 people (according to police accounts, but more than 20,000 people according to several studies), that this violent mode is not working. Drugs are still in our streets. Killing is not the solution!

The Vice President deserves the support of everyone if the drug problem is to be addressed in a holistic way. It is a health issue, a poverty issue, an education issue, an employment and livelihood issue, a corruption and good governance issue, and also a police issue. Now is the time for those who criticized the killings to come out to contribute to solve the drug problem. I think we all agree that there is a big drug problem in our country. Now let us put our acts together since we have a person in charge who is ready to listen and to enlist the contributions of all, and is not bent only on a narrow one-sided view that the drug problem is just a criminal issue.

Helping and supporting VP Leni in this urgent task, however, does not mean that we will go all along with this administration, and not even with all that she would do. We remain vigilant that human rights and human life are respected. We always demand accountability and those who do wrong should be made to answer for their misdeeds as the law provides. We support the program and we work for the common good, and are not to be blinded by loyalty to persons. As always, we are guided by the principle of critical collaboration. We work together and support what is for the good. This means that the aim is good and the means are good. But when something that is abusive and untruthful is done, we criticize and denounce. No loyalty to persons. We serve God alone, thus we serve what is good, what is just and what is true!