Frederick Douglass, the "Lion of Anacostia" who was born a slave and became a fervent abolitionist was accused in his time of being too cozy with the white oppressors. He understood that to become an effective political voice, he needed to make some concessions but he was always conscious of the long, difficult struggle that would demand great sacrifice in order to accomplish great works: "If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

I spent 12 of my early and formative years at the Ateneo De Manila, a Jesuit school. 8 of those years was at a time when we felt the full force of Martial Law. Contrary to current popular thinking, there were many heroes who resisted (debunking the saying at that time that the Philippines was composed of 40 million cowards and a son of a bitch). As the article states, during those dangerous years, even our Jesuit mentors could not fully grasp the heroism of these 11. The Jesuits were teaching us to become "men for others" not realizing that practically right beside them were former students showing us how to live that lesson.

Ateneo’s 11
By Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Human Face

That is what we are about .… It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning …. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.—Martyred El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)

IN REVERSE ALPHABETICAL ORDER: MANNY Yap (1951-1976), Nick Solana Jr. (1949-75), Lazzie Silva (1952-75), Ditto Sarmiento (1950-77), Dante Perez (1951-72), Eman Lacaba (1948-78), Edgar Jopson (1948-82), Sonny Hizon (1952-74), Jun Celestial (1950-74), Billy Begg (1959-75), Ferdie Arceo (1952-73).

All so young and so committed. Will there be another generation like theirs? (Yes, like ours, if I may interrupt and interject.) Will there be another call such as they had heard, will there be another harvest such as this special crop?

The book “Living and Dying: In Memory of 11 Ateneo de Manila Martial Law Activists” by Cristina Jayme Montiel tells the story of these young men’s individual lives and deaths. It is about the process of their becoming, their journey into the wilderness, and the final shedding and pouring out of their substance—so that others may live abundantly. Their dying was not only a physical one, it was, and more importantly, a dying to self even while they were alive.

Yap who disappeared in 1976 remains missing to this day. Sarmiento, a campus journalist and activist, died at home after suffering in military detention. The nine others died from bullet and torture wounds in the hands of their military pursuers or captors, separately and at different times, far from home, in remote places the faint of heart would fear to tread.

As the poet Lacaba had written:

The road less traveled by we’ve taken—/And that has made all the difference:/The barefoot army of the wilderness/We should be in time. Awakened, the masses are Messiah,/Here among the workers and peasants our lost/Generation has found its true, its only home.

Captured alive, Lacaba was shot twice—in the mouth and the chest—and tied by the ankles then dragged to a mass grave. Arceo was shot on a seaside in Iloilo. Begg, born an American but who chose Filipino citizenship, met a brutal death in Isabela.

Writes Montiel: “Bill was captured alive. Before killing him, however, the soldiers mercilessly tortured him, leaving him with 17 stab wounds, 11 gunshot wounds, a broken rib cage and smashed hands. The day Bill died marked his third month in the Isabela area, a short five months after he joined the struggle in the countryside. He was 24.”

But it has to be stressed that while the moment of death may look dramatic and climactic, it was the trajectory of their lives that provided the substance. This was reflected by the choices they made early on. This was distilled in their thoughts, ideas and ideals (as gleaned from their letters, poems, journals and from the recollection of family, friends and comrades) and, most of all, in the way they lived.

All 11 stories move in almost parallel ways, chronologically, that is, from birth to death. But as a story progresses, one gets tempted to jump pages to get to the heart of things and on to the climax. The uniform, predictable progression makes the stories easy to follow and allows the reader to compare the stories. This must have been deliberate on the part of the writer.

Still I wish the writer had provided some surprise beginnings, rapturous peaks or throat-grabbing denouements at the most unexpected places. Well, simply because the subjects’ lives must have been full of cinematic if not dramatic twists and turns. The setting was the worst of times, remember.

But this is not to say that the life stories are bland. They are not. And credit must indeed go to Montiel, professor of Peace/Political Psychology, who bravely embarked on the project. Montiel is coordinator of the doctoral program in Social Organizational Psychology at the Ateneo.

I use the word “bravely” because for Montiel, a known activist during the martial law years, writing the stories meant wading into a difficult past. “I cannot separate myself from this book,” Montiel says, “not only because of past personal friendships shared with two of the featured activists, Edjop and Dante, but also because of land mines in my heart that come alive whenever I remember martial law days.” At the time she wrote the book, Montiel was just recovering from a long string of both painful and healing experiences. Yes, she bravely enumerates them.

“I was afraid that old psychological and political scripts in the shadows of my heart still battered by martial law would take on life again. Hence I could not go too near the fire, afraid of ignition. I apologize if these 11 stories may lack the personal or political intensity so befitting martial law lives and deaths.”

Yes, Tina, I understand and appreciate.

“Living and Dying” is the second in a series of “truth-telling” book projects of the Ateneo. (The first is “Down from the Hill.”) And so Montiel so rightly “truth-tells” and takes on this Jesuit institution by pointing out in the stories how several of the Ateneo 11 had been sanctioned, even unceremoniously dismissed, because of their ideological causes.

Well, that is why the book launching was also called a “coming-home ritual,” with families of the martyred alumni coming home on behalf of their departed sons, praying and lighting candles with kindred spirits, singing songs and sharing precious memorabilia.

All 10 names, except that of Solana Jr. (data still lacking), are inscribed on the memorial wall of Bantayog ng mga Bayani. But somewhere on Sacred Heart Hill, near the Church of the Iesu in the Ateneo campus, is a marker shaped like an eternal flame. It is in memory of these special young men who gave all. Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

Addressing some 6,000 people in Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father dedicated his weekly address to focus on three of St. Paul's closest collaborators: Barnabas, Silas and Apollos.

The Pontiff explained that on occasions Paul had confrontations with them, at least with Barnabas, because of differences of opinion on specific questions.

"Hence, also among saints there are oppositions, discords and controversies And this is very consoling for me, as we see that the saints have not 'fallen from heaven,'" the Holy Father said.

"They are men like us, with complicated problems. Holiness does not consist in not making mistakes or never sinning," Benedict XVI continued. "Holiness grows with the capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness.

"And we can all learn this way of holiness."

from Zenit

Reader-friends of this blog were somewhat concerned with the maudlin tone of the preceding entry. I want to assure one and all that everything is fine. San Juan de la Cruz described the three stages of great human endeavor: great faith, great doubt and finally great effort.

This is what I mean when all I claim is that I am a physician with above-average intelligence who is applying to the Filipino people for a chance to contribute to national development. I surely do not want to misrepresent myself.

A photographer for CNN was assigned to cover southern California's wildfires last year. He wanted pictures of the heroic work the firefighters were doing as they battled the blazes.

When the photographer arrived on the scene, he realized that the smoke was so thick it would seriously impede, or even make impossible, his getting good photographs from the ground level. He requested permission from his boss to rent a plane and take photos from the air.

His request was approved and he used his cell phone to call the local county airport to charter a flight. He was told a single engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport.

Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, "Let's go!"

The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and roared down the runway. Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot, "Fly over the valley and make two or three low passes so I can take some pictures of the fires on the hillsides."

"Why?" asked the pilot.

"Because I'm a photographer for CNN," he responded. "And I need to get some close-up shots."

The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, "So, you're telling me you're not the flight instructor?

Woke up at 3 am today, totally convinced that I was just going to play golf daily and spend as much time as I could with my growing daughters. At that hour, it was crystal clear to me that the time, money, security concerns, loss of privacy was simply not worth it considering the votes would not be properly counted anyway. At the break of dawn, my apprehensions became somewhat manageable. Makes me admire all these professional pols even more. They seem to flourish in this evil environment. What is humbling about all this is that everybody seems to be praying for guidance and everybody appears to be sincere in wanting to help the poor and the weak.

There must be some study out there that tracks the descent of good intentions. Where in the parabola is the break point? When do heroes capable of great sacrifice become the problem? I will report to you as a neophyte that the decision is not an easy one. Much as I'd like to stipulate that my involvement will consist of a limited period of time, I really do not know. It would be a mark of hubris to be making such declarations.