In a world where we celebrate youth and vigor and everything is digital, to be old is considered a burden and to be ignorant about Facebook and Twitter is considered a defect.
If you feel irritated by your parents ignorance or slowness in the use of techie gadgets, there’s a touching video in You Tube, about a Greek father and son and a sparrow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWJq1SvgWQ0 ).
Adrift in the Andaman Sea are hundreds of thousands of people in the verge of death due to hunger, thirst and victims of human cruelty.
They are the Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic group mainly living in Myanmar. It is estimated that they number some 800,000 and comprise 80 to 90 percent of the state of Rakhine.
Boatloads of them have fled Myanmar where they are being persecuted. Myanmar does not consider them its citizens. History accounts say they migrated from Bengal during the 1700s during the British rule. Although some scholars say they are indigenous to the state of Rakhine.
Edith Burgos, mother of missing farmer/activist Jonas Burgos, together with relatives of persons who have disappeared, went to the Aquino house in Times St., Quezon city to deliver a letter to President Aquino on the on the 8th anniversary of the abduction of Jonas Burgos.
They were blocked by about 50 policemen.
The letter that Edith Burgos was carrying was an appeal to Aquino “to end this suffering of the family of not knowing the truth about what happened to Jonas.”
On April 28, 2007, past noon, Jonas Burgos was at Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City waiting for friends. Before his friends came three military agents, one was a woman, approached him and forcibly brought him out to a waiting vehicle. Jonas was never seen after that.
Life’s normal cycle starts with birth and ends with death. To just disappear violates life’s natural cycle.
The disappearance of Jonas and many other Filipinos is an assault to humanity and an outrage especially in a democratic country like the Philippines.
In her letter Edith gave the President an update of Jonas’s case and appealed for him to order the military to return Jonas to them “at whatever state he is in.”
But his deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, “Wala naman hong ganoon. Parang insulto din sa bisita kapag sinabi mong ‘pag tinago niyo, hindi na niya malalaman’.Hindi naman natin din tinatago ang estado… Makikita naman ‘yan sa official statistics.”
Insulto talaga.
A journalist friend thinks it was not for Pope Francis that the government removed the destitute from Metro Manila’s streets. It was the foreign press that were coming to cover the Papal visit that they were more concerned about.
Five years ago, a crime so heinous was perpetrated by persons in authority, in a remote village in Maguindanao in Southwestern Mindanao.
Fifty-eight persons lay dead after Andal Ampatuan, Jr., mayor of Datu Unsay town and his men were through with their shooting spree. He then asked for a backhoe in the office of his father, Andal Ampatuan Sr., who was then governor of the province, to be brought to the crime scene to bury the dead bodies.
Among the dead was Genalyn Mangudadatu, wife of the political rival of the Ampatuans, Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu, who was supposed to file the certificate of candidacy of her husband challenging the position of the Ampatuan patriarch.
Of the 58 victims, 32 were members of media, who were supposed to cover the political event.
In Brussels last Tuesday, Aquino was asked about human rights violations in the country. In defending his administration, he cited as an example the killing of journalists that has earned for the Philippines the ignominious reputation of the third most dangerous place for journalists, next only to strife-torn Syria and Iraq.
“For instance, in the media killings, some who used to work in media died. Did they die because they were investigative journalists? Were they exercising their profession in a responsible manner, living up to journalistic ethics? Or did they perish because of other reasons?” Aquino said.
This is another example of Aquino’s warped thinking.
Apparently some people in India have a problem with that because Mary Aileen Diez Bacalso, secretary general of Asian Federation Against involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), was refused admission into India last Sunday and was sent back on the same Thai Airways plane which brought her to Mumbai.
Bacalso said when she asked why she was barred from entering India, an immigration official replied, “You should know.”
Bacalso is widely recognized for her work against forced disappearances. Last year she was awarded by the Argentinian government the Emilio Mignone International Human Rights Prize “in recognition of her work against enforced disappearance in Asia and the world. “
By Ellen T. Tordesillas, VERA Files
Cabbie Edward Villanueva, 49, of World Taxi, said Daniel Marsh, one of the hosts of “Juan Direction,” a weekly documentary-style reality show, mauled him and damaged his cab when he insisted that the host pay the P78.50 fare reflected in the taximeter.
VERA Files tried to get Marsh side by text and call, but he did not reply.
Villanueva said Marsh got into his cab a little past 5 a.m. outside the Prive Luxury Club at The Fort in Taguig and directed him to go to the Tivoli Garden Residences in Mandaluyong.
On their way to Tivoli, the driver said Marsh, who was tipsy, was complaining that he lost his wallet at the club.
Lawyer Edward Serapio, former presidential counsel during the Estrada administration, once told me when he was under detention in Camp Crame in connection with Estrada’s plunder case way back in 2001, that he was so grateful for the wife of then Philippine National Police head Leandro Mendoza serving him coffee when he surrendered early in the morning at the White House, the PNP chief’s residence.
Yesterday, Sen. Juan Ponce- Enrile thanked the PNP for treating him kindly, allowing him to stay at the PNP General Hospital in Camp Crame upon his surrender last Friday and allowing him to have his check up at the Asian Eye Institute in Makati the next day.
At this time when the popular sentiment is to throw stones at all those accused in the plunder of people’s money (Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla et al), any act kindness to those who are down is the true essence of humanity.
It is not about the guilt of the accused. It is humaneness.
While we should be vigilant that justice is obtained in the pork barrel scam, we should also be conscious of the danger that in pursuing justice, we become hardened and lose our sense of humanity. That would be a tragedy.
Chairman Eugenio “Toto” Villareal of The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board is not happy with what ABS-CBN in their Pinoy Big Brother reality show did to the two female housemates.
He will meet with “PBB:All In” executives today about its June 4 and 5 episodes wherein Big Brother or “Kuya “ challenged housemate Jamey Jalandoni to pose for a nude painting as part of her weekly tasks.
Big Brother sternly told her: “Marami ang nakasalalay rito; ang inyong weekly task, ang tulong na maibibigay sa pintor at sa kaniyang adbokasiya… Bibigyan kita ng oras para makapag-isip (There is a lot riding on your decision; your weekly task, the help you can extend the painter and his advocacy… I will give you time to think).”