Newly-elected President of the Philippines depicts Filipinos as barbarians

Malacañang, Residence of the President of the Philippines

Pasig River, Manila [Wikipedia]

Philippines' President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has said he aims to bring back death by hanging.

Mr Duterte said he will ask his country's congress to reimpose the death penalty, which has been suspended since 2006 following opposition from the Catholic church.

The controversial presumptive president, who was making his first policy pronouncements since winning last week's election based on an unofficial count, said that capital punishment by hanging should be imposed for crimes such as murder, robbery and rape.

Mr Duterte went on to say that those convicted of more than one crime would be hanged twice.

"After the first hanging, there will be another ceremony for the second time until the head is completely severed from the body," he said in the nationally televised news conference.

The above is from a report in the Irish Examiner dated 16 May.

In other words, the President-elect whose surname, appropriately, rhymes with 'too dirty', is declaring to the world that Filipinos are barbarians. After 45 years in the country I know that such is not true, though there is considerable violence. There are currently more than 1,400 unsolved murders in Davao City, allegedly 'peaceful' after 22 years of the Duterte dictatorship there which will continue courtesy of his daughter and son, newly-elected as mayor and vice-mayor. The President-elect has acknowledged his links to the 'Davao Death Squad' which has probably carried out most of these murders, including the killings of the four sons of Clarita Alia.

The Independent (England) has this story by Samuel Osborne today: Philippines president-elect RodrigoDuterte pledges to bring back death penalty and shoot to kill powers. It adds, He said he preferred hanging to firing squads because he does not want to waste bullets. Hanging has never been used as a form of execution in the Philippines.

Tom Smith writes in The Guardian (England) 10 May: Don’t compare Trump and Duterte – the Philippines leader is far worse. Smith notes: The 71-year-old has been allowed to run as an anti-establishment figurehead due to a lack of media scrutiny. This is in spite of the fact that he has been mayor of Davao (the largest city in Mindanao) for 22 years and has served as a congressman. Trump is the political outsider and while Duterte cultivates a similar image it simply isn’t true. He is a trained lawyer and he and his family are developing into a powerful political clan.

Not all in the media here in the Philippines have been uncritical of the man who will become President on 30 June.

Lindsay Murdoch in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald has this story: Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte to urge Congress to introduce public hangings. Murdoch reminds us: Only a handful of countries carry out public executions, including Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Yes, the Philippines will be in good company.

And if Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipina whose execution was postponed in Indonesia in April last year at the last minute will come before the firing-squad again, is the new President of the Philippines going to plead on her behalf?

Some newspapers, here in the Philippines and abroad, have used the term 'landslide' to describe the victory of the Mayor of Davao. While it is true that he is 15 percentage points ahead of the next of the five candidates, he got only 38.6 percent of the votes. (That unofficial count is almost complete and nobody has questioned its accuracy).

In other words, more than 60 percent of those who voted - 8o percent of those eligible did so - did not want this man as President of the Philippines. However, he has been lawfully elected and has a term of office of six years.

In Ireland, where I'm from, the abiding symbol of the Philippines is that of the Filipino nurse, who is found in almost every hospital in the country, a symbol of caring, of professionalism, of kindness, of healing.

The symbol of the Philippines that the President-elect is now promoting around the world is that of the Filipino as barbarian.

God help the Philippines!

'I am the vine, you are the branches.' Sunday Reflections, 5th Sunday of Easter, Year B

From The Gospel of John (2003) directed by Philip Saville

Today's Gospel, John 15:1-8 [0:00 - 1:22]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

              

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 15:1-8 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

  

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

The Virgin of the Grapes, Pierre Mignard, 1640s

Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art]

Around this time twenty years ago I paid my only visit to the Holy Land, at the insistence of a friend of mine, Ninfa, whom I had met at a charismatic gathering in Tagum, Davao del Norte, Mindanao, in 1977. When Ninfa worked for a family in Israel she began to organise pilgrimages to the holy sites for her fellow Filipino workers, Overseas Filipino Workers, or 'OFWs', as they are known here in the Philippines.

Ninfa had arranged for us to stay for some nights in Jerusalem in a school run by Salesian Sisters. It was during the long vacation so there were no students there. During dinner the first evening I discovered that among the 14 or 15 visitors in the dining room, pilgrims from many parts of the world, all strangers, apart from Ninfa, there were three who knew persons I knew. Not for the first time I felt in a very personal way the reality that we as Christians truly are one. I am the vine, you are the branches.

Pope Benedict, in a homily during Mass at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on 22 September 2011 reflects on this: 

If we consider these beati and the great throng of those who have been canonized and beatified, we can understand what it means to live as branches of Christ, the true vine, and to bear fruit. Today’s Gospel puts before us once more the image of this climbing plant, that spreads so luxuriantly in the east, a symbol of vitality and a metaphor for the beauty and dynamism of Jesus’ fellowship with his disciples and friends – with us.

In the parable of the vine, Jesus does not say: 'You are the vine', but: 'I am the vine, you are the branches' (John 15:5). In other words: 'As the branches are joined to the vine, so you belong to me! But inasmuch as you belong to me, you also belong to one another.' This belonging to each other and to him is not some ideal, imaginary, symbolic relationship, but – I would almost want to say – a biological, life-transmitting state of belonging to Jesus Christ. Such is the Church, this communion of life with Jesus Christ and for one another, a communion that is rooted in baptism and is deepened and given more and more vitality in the Eucharist. 'I am the true vine' actually means: 'I am you and you are I' – an unprecedented identification of the Lord with us, with his Church.

This last week here in the Philippines brought people together in prayer for an OFW, Mary Jane Veloso, the mother of two young boys, who was due to be executed by firing squad in Indonesia, along with eight others, all having been found guilty, in separate cases, of bringing illegal drugs into that country or trying to smuggle them out. Most people, including myself, believe that she was duped and was unaware of what she was carrying in a new suitcase given her. She had been led to believe, like many others, that a good job awaited her. At the last minute, some hours after she had said goodbye to her family and was preparing for the worst, she was told that the execution had been postponed because of new information from the Philippines. An hour after she learned this the other eight, involved in different cases of smuggling of illegal drugs, were taken out and shot.

One of those was a Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, apparently did not understand that he was to be executed. This was told by Fr Charlie Burrows OMI, who has been working in the area where the executions took place since the 1970s. He has been present at executions in the past. He also told how guards present when Mary Jane Veloso was bidding goodbye to her children broke down crying.

I discovered that Fr Burrows is from Dublin, is the same age as myself and went to the same school, though he was a year behind me and I can't claim to have known him. But again I was struck by how we are related through our baptism. An Irish priest in Indonesia spending so much time with a Brazilian facing execution there and apparently spending time with Mary Jane Veloso, though there were Filipino priests who were helping her and her family. I am the vine, you are the branches.

All of these were united through their faith in Jesus Christ, a faith received as a precious gift at baptism.

During the last visit of her family to Mary Jane they prayed together and sang, at her request, a hymn written for the Great Jubilee of 2000 by a namesake, Mary Jane C. Mendoza, better known as Jamie Rivera.

Open your hearts to the Lord and begin to see the mystery
That we are all together as one family.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

 Antiphona ad Communionem Communion Antiphon Cf. John 15:1,5

Ego sum vitis vera et vos palmites, dicit Dominus;

I am the true vine and you are the branches, says the Lord.

qui manet in me et ego in eo,

Whoever remains in me, and I in him,

hic fert fructum multum, alleluia.

bears fruit in plenty, alleluia.

Rosary and Scapular [Wikipedia]

The month of May is traditionally one of special devotion to Our Blessed Mother. That is still very strong in the Philippines. It used to be very strong in Ireland. The late Irish tenor Frank Patterson here sings a very popular hymn to Our Lady.

Bring Flowers of the Rarest (Queen of the May)

Attributed to Mary E. Walsh in 1883

Bring flowers of the rarest
bring blossoms the fairest,
from garden and woodland and hillside and dale;
our full hearts are swelling,
our glad voices telling
the praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!

Refrain:
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.
O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.

Their lady they name thee,
Their mistress proclaim thee,
Oh, grant that thy children on earth be as true
as long as the bowers
are radiant with flowers,
as long as the azure shall keep its bright hue

Refrain

Sing gaily in chorus;
the bright angels o'er us
re-echo the strains we begin upon earth;
their harps are repeating
the notes of our greeting,
for Mary herself is the cause of our mirth.

Refrain

Eight Franciscan Sisters in Indonesia Killed in Road Accident

UCANews carries a heartbreaking story today of eight Franciscan Sisters of Charity and their driver dying instantly when their minivan plunged into a river while they were on their way to the funeral of the mother of another member of their congregation.

I’ve been unable to find any information online about the congregation but the Archdiocese of Palembang , where the provincial house is and where the Sisters will be buried, had about 76,000 Catholics, 0.7 percent of a population of nearly 11,000,000, in 2004. There were 236 Sisters in the archdiocese at that time.

Four of the Sisters who died were in their early 20s. Please pray for their eternal rest and for their congregation and families, all of whom must be utterly devastated.