Category: News

KODAO Productions
January 6, 2021

The country’s Inflation rate accelerated to 3.5% in December 2020, driven by the increase in the prices of food non-alcoholic beverages, transport, and restaurant and miscellaneous goods and services, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) reported Tuesday.

The inflation rate last month is higher than the 3.3% in November 2020 and the 2.5% in December 2019.

Among the sub-groups, prices of vegetables and meat significantly increased from the previous month, traced to lower production following the damage caused by previous typhoons, the NEDA said.

The increase in the prices of meat inched up for the third consecutive month owing to the decline in domestic swine production due to the African Swine Fever (ASF), the agency added.

NEDA said that country’s average inflation rate for 2020 is at 2.6%, higher than the 2.5% the previous year but within the 2% to 4% target range of the government.

Acting socioeconomic planning secretary Karl Kendrick Chua blamed the coronavirus pandemic and the string of calamities that hit the country for the increase.

“The imminent threat of natural calamities every year highlights the need for long-term solutions such as infrastructure investments that would improve flood control, water management and irrigation systems, reforestation, climate-resilient production and processing facilities, among others,” Chua said.

Chua warned that the ongoing La Niña weather phenomenon may continue to adversely affect the economy.

Inflation hardest for the poor

Research group IBON noted that the December 2020 inflation rate is the highest inflation in 21 months, and even higher for the poorest 30% of Filipino households at 4.3%.

IBON said that even Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data show that the December inflation rate is the highest since March 2019.

“The prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose the fastest at 4.8% last month from 4.3% in November 2020. Inflation in health and transport was also higher at 2.6% and 8.3%, respectively,” IBON reported.

“The higher December 2020 inflation figures underscore the urgency of giving poor and low-income families additional emergency cash subsidies. The faster increase in prices is all the more burdensome due to record joblessness and decreasing incomes amid the pandemic lockdown,” the group said.

IBON blamedthe government’s continuing failure to contain the pandemic it said resulted in more unemployed Filipinos today than at any time in the country’s history. The group estimates unemployment in October 2020 at 5.8 million Filipinos — or two million more than the official 3.8 million count — or an unemployment rate of 12.7 percent. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

The tradition of invocations at presidential inaugurations goes back to 1937

By Carol Zimmermann, Catholic News Service
January 9, 2021

Jesuit Father Leo O’Donovan, former president of Georgetown University, will deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden on Jan. 20.

The priest, a friend of the Biden family, was the main celebrant at the funeral Mass for Biden’s son Beau in 2015 at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Wilmington, Delaware.

He confirmed with National Catholic Reporter Jan. 6 that he would be delivering the invocation, saying Biden had personally called him and invited him, which he accepted.

This year’s scaled-back public inauguration ceremony, due to the pandemic, will take place on the west side of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, a site taken over Jan. 6 by rioters contesting the certification of the 2020 presidential election. President Donald Trump announced on Jan. 8 that he would not attend the ceremony.

In leading the prayer of blessing, Father O’Donovan, who is currently director of mission for Jesuit Refugee Service, will follow the footsteps of his predecessor at Georgetown, Jesuit Father Timothy Healy, who offered a prayer during the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

The tradition of invocations at presidential inaugurations goes back to 1937 and Catholic leaders have been in this role for several presidents. The Southern Baptist minister, Rev. Billy Graham, offered this prayer for presidents Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

In 1961, when John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the first Catholic president, Boston Cardinal Richard J. Cushing delivered the invocation, which said in part: “Strengthen our resolve, oh Lord, to transform this recognition of others into a principle of cooperation. Inspire us to practice this principle of cooperation both in ideal and action in these most dangerous, but soul-stretching times.”

Four years later, Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio gave the invocation at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s inauguration.

His prayer included a description of the time saying: “In these days of tragedy and crisis all that we hold dear is challenged — belief in God, respect for human responsibility, honor, integrity, and every freedom of the human spirit. All these are at stake and our country, champion of truth and justice, must lead the nations of the world to the dawn of a brighter hope.”

In celebration of the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines, the Healing Rosary for the World is brought to us by the LIGHT OF FAITH featuring the world’s largest solar rosary by the A Liter of Light (Isang Litrong Liwanag). As one nation, let us come together and pray the rosary for healing, and bring the light of faith, 500 years and beyond! The Manila Cathedral, January 6, 2021, 9:00 PM.

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54th World Day Of Peace
Homily Of His Holiness Pope Francis

Vatican Basilica
Friday, 1st January 2021

In the readings of today’s Mass, three verbs find their fulfilment in the Mother of God: to bless, to be born and to find.

To bless.  In the Book of Numbers, the Lord tells his sacred ministers to bless his people: “Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, ‘The Lord bless you’” (6:23-24).  This is no pious exhortation; it is a specific request.  And it is important that, today too, priests constantly bless the People of God and that the faithful themselves be bearers of blessing; that they bless.  The Lord knows how much we need to be blessed.  The first thing he did after creating the world was to say that everything was good (bene-dicere) and to say of us that that we were very good.  Now, however, with the Son of God we receive not only words of blessing, but the blessing itself: Jesus is himself the blessing of the Father.  In him, Saint Paul tells us, the Father blesses us “with every blessing” (Eph 1:3).  Every time we open our hearts to Jesus, God’s blessing enters our lives.

Today we celebrate the Son of God, who is “blessed” by nature, who comes to us through his Mother, “blessed” by grace.  In this way, Mary brings us God’s blessing.  Wherever she is, Jesus comes to us.  Therefore, we should welcome her like Saint Elizabeth who, immediately recognizing the blessing, cried out: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Lk 1:42).  We repeat those words every time we recite the Hail Mary.  In welcoming Mary, we receive a blessing, but we also learn to bless.  Our Lady teaches us that blessings are received in order to be given.  She, who was blessed, became a blessing for all those whom she met: for Elizabeth, for the newlyweds at Cana, for the Apostles in the Upper Room…  We too are called to bless, to “speak well” in God’s name.  Our world is gravely polluted by the way we “speak” and think “badly” of others, of society, of ourselves.  Speaking badly corrupts and decays, whereas blessing restores life and gives the strength needed to begin anew each day.  Let us ask the Mother of God for the grace to be joyful bearers of God’s blessing to others, as she is to us.

The second verb is to be born.  Saint Paul points out that the Son of God was “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4).  In these few words, he tells us something amazing: that the Lord was born like us.  He did not appear on the scene as an adult, but as a child.  He came into the world not on his own, but from a woman, after nine months in the womb of his Mother, from whom he allowed his humanity to be shaped.  The heart of the Lord began to beat within Mary; the God of life drew oxygen from her.  Ever since then, Mary has united us to God because in her God bound himself to our flesh, and he has never left it.  Saint Francis loved to say that Mary “made the Lord of Majesty our brother” (SAINT BONAVENTURE, Legenda Maior, 9, 3).  She is not only the bridge joining us to God; she is more.  She is the road that God travelled in order to reach us, and the road that we must travel in order to reach him.  Through Mary, we encounter God the way he wants us to: in tender love, in intimacy, in the flesh.  For Jesus is not an abstract idea; he is real and incarnate; he was “born of a woman”, and quietly grew.  Women know about this kind of quiet growth.  We men tend to be abstract and want things right away.  Women are concrete and know how to weave life’s threads with quiet patience.  How many women, how many mothers, thus give birth and rebirth to life, offering the world a future!

We are in this world not to die, but to give life.  The holy Mother of God teaches us that the first step in giving life to those around us is to cherish it within ourselves.  Today’s Gospel tells us that Mary “kept all these things in her heart” (cf. Lk 2:19).  And goodness comes from the heart.  How important it is to keep our hearts pure, to cultivate our interior life and to persevere in our prayer!  How important it is to educate our hearts to care, to cherish the persons and things around us.  Everything starts from this: from cherishing others, the world and creation.  What good is it to know many persons and things if we fail to cherish them?  This year, while we hope for new beginnings and new cures, let us not neglect care.  Together with a vaccine for our bodies, we need a vaccine for our hearts.  That vaccine is care.  This will be a good year if we take care of others, as Our Lady does with us.

The third verb is to find.  The Gospel tells us that the shepherds “found Mary and Joseph and the child” (v. 16).  They did not find miraculous and spectacular signs, but a simple family.  Yet there they truly found God, who is grandeur in littleness, strength in tenderness.  But how were the shepherds able to find this inconspicuous sign?  They were called by an angel.  We too would not have found God if we had not been called by grace.  We could never have imagined such a God, born of a woman, who revolutionizes history with tender love.  Yet by grace we did find him.  And we discovered that his forgiveness brings new birth, his consolation enkindles hope, his presence bestows irrepressible joy.  We found him but we must not lose sight of him.  Indeed, the Lord is never found once and for all: each day he has to be found anew.  The Gospel thus describes the shepherds as constantly on the lookout, constantly on the move: “they went with haste, they found, they made known, they returned, glorifying and praising God” (vv. 16-17.20).  They were not passive, because to receive grace we have to be active.

What about ourselves?  What are we called to find at the beginning of this year?  It would be good to find time for someone.  Time is a treasure that all of us possess, yet we guard it jealously, since we want to use it only for ourselves.  Let us ask for the grace to find time for God and for our neighbour – for those who are alone or suffering, for those who need someone to listen and show concern for them.  If we can find time to give, we will be amazed and filled with joy, like the shepherds.  May Our Lady, who brought God into the world of time, help us to be generous with our time.  Holy Mother of God, to you we consecrate this New Year.  You, who know how to cherish things in your heart, care for us, bless our time, and teach us to find time for God and for others.  With joy and confidence, we acclaim you: Holy Mother of God!  Amen.

© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Explanations of the Organizing Dicastery

December 28, 2020 Anita Bourdin

The “Amoris Laetitia Family” Year (March 19, 2021- June 26, 2022) has five objectives, pointed out the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life on December 27, 2020. “To spread the Document’s content,” “to proclaim that the Sacrament of Marriage is a gift,” to render families actors of the family pastoral,” “to make young people conscious of the importance of formation to the truth of love and of the gift of oneself,” “to broaden the gaze and action of the family pastoral . . . so as to include spouses, children, young people, the elderly and situations of family fragility.”

Among the “initiatives” already planned, is a “day for grandparents and elderly people,” but also a Forum in June 2021, and ten videos of Pope Francis on the Document, testimonies of handicapped people, pastoral proposals, preparatory catecheses for Rome’s 10th World Meeting of Families in June 2022.

The Dicastery quotes first of all the Post-Synodal Document: “The Christian proclamation concerning the family is truly good news” (Amoris Laetitia, 1).

Opening and Closing

Pope Francis will open the “Amoris Laetitia Family” Year on March 19, 2021. On that day the Church will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia “on the beauty and the joy of family love.” He will close it on June 26, 2022, on the occasion of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome.

This is how the organizing Dicastery explains the “project.” The “Amoris Laetitia” Year is an initiative of Pope Francis, which intends to touch the world’s families through different proposals of a spiritual, pastoral and cultural nature, able to be implemented in parishes, dioceses, Universities, Ecclesial Movements, and family Associations.”

“The pandemic experience has made evident the central role of the family as domestic Church and the importance of community links between families, which make the Church a “family of families” (AL 87),” underscores the Dicastery.

This is why the family “merits a year of celebrations because it is placed at the center of the engagement and care of the whole pastoral and ecclesial reality.”

There are five objectives:

1. To spread the content of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia,” to have people experience that the Gospel of the family is a joy that fills the heart and our whole life” (AL 200). A family that discovers and experiences the joy of having a gift and of being a gift to the Church and the society, “can become a light in the darkness of the world” (AL 66). And today the world is in need of that light!
2. To proclaim that the Sacrament of Marriage is a gift and that it has in itself a transforming power of human love. To this end, it is necessary that Pastors and families walk together in pastoral co-responsibility and complementarity between the different vocations in the Church (cf. AL 203).
3. To make families protagonists in the Family Pastoral. To this end, “an effort of evangelization and of catechesis directed to the heart of the family” (AL 200) is necessary because a disciple family also becomes a missionary family.
4. To sensitize young people to the importance of being formed in the truth of love and in the gift of oneself with initiatives dedicated to them.
5. To broaden the gaze and action of the family pastoral so that it becomes transversal to the family, to include the spouses, the children, the young people, the elderly and situations of family fragility.”

Initiatives and Resources

1. Forum “Where are we with Amoris Laetitia? Strategies for the implementation of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation,” from June 9 to 12, 2021, with leaders of the family pastoral of Episcopal Conferences, and international family Movements and Associations.
2. Project “10 Amoris Laetitia Videos”: The Holy Father will recount the chapters of the Apostolic Exhortation, with families that will give witness of certain aspects of their daily life. Every month a video will be diffused to awaken the pastoral interest of the family in the dioceses and parishes of the whole world.
3. #IamChurch: diffusion of some video testimonies on ecclesial leadership and the faith of handicapped people.
4. To walk as a family”: 12 concrete pastoral proposals to walk as a family inspired by Amoris Laetitia.
5. In view of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome in 2022, the dioceses and families of the whole world are invited to spread and reflect further on the catecheses that will be made available by the diocese of Rome and to engage in ad hoc pastoral initiatives.
6. Celebration of a day for grandparents and elderly people.

“Tools of family spirituality, of formation and pastoral action in preparation for marriage, education to affection of young people, on the sanctity of spouses and families that live the grace of the Sacrament in their daily life, will be diffused,” adds the same source.

In addition, the Dicastery announces that international “University symposiums will be organized to explore the content and the implications of the Apostolic Exhortation in relation to the topical questions that affect families of the whole world”

The 2022 World Meeting in Rome

“Family love: vocation and way of holiness” is the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the next World Meeting of Families, which will be held in Rome in June 2022.

‘The Child born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem was born for everyone: he is the son that God has given to the entire human family’

December 25, 2020  Zenit Staff

Pope Francis delivered the traditional Urbi et Orbi (“To the City [of Rome] and the World”) on Christmas Day. This year, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, he spoke in the Hall of Benediction of St. Peter’s Basilica, the upper area just behind the central loggia where he would usually have delivered his message, with a limited gathering of the faithful.
Following is the full message of the Holy Father.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Merry Christmas!

I would like to bring to everyone the message that the Church proclaims on this feast with the words of the prophet Isaiah: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Is 9:6)

A child is born. A birth is always a source of hope; it is life that blossoms, a promise of the future. Moreover, this Child, Jesus, was born “to us”: an “us” without any borders, privileges or exclusions. The Child born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem was born for everyone: he is the “son” that God has given to the entire human family.

Thanks to this Child, all of us can speak to God and call him “Father”. Jesus is the only-begotten Son; no one but he knows the Father. Yet he came into the world for this very reason: to show us the face of the Father. Thanks to this Child, we can all call one another brothers and sisters, for so we truly are. We come from every continent, from every language and culture, with our own identities and differences, yet we are all brothers and sisters.

At this moment in history, marked by the ecological crisis and grave economic and social imbalances only worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, it is all the more important for us to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters. God has made this fraternal unity possible, by giving us his Son Jesus. The fraternity he offers us has nothing to do with fine words, abstract ideals, or vague sentiments. It is a fraternity grounded in genuine love, making it possible for me to encounter others different from myself, feeling compassion for their sufferings, drawing near to them, and caring for them even though they do not belong to my family, my ethnic group, or my religion. For all their differences, they are still my brothers and sisters. The same thing is true of relationships between peoples and nations: brothers and sisters all!

At Christmas we celebrate the light of Christ who comes into the world; he comes for everyone, not just for some. Today, in this time of darkness and uncertainty regarding the pandemic, various lights of hope appear, such as the discovery of vaccines. But for these lights to illuminate and bring hope to all, they need to be available to all. We cannot allow the various forms of nationalism closed in on themselves to prevent us from living as the truly human family that we are. Nor can we allow the virus of radical individualism to get the better of us and make us indifferent to the suffering of other brothers and sisters. I cannot place myself ahead of others, letting the law of the marketplace and patents take precedence over the law of love and the health of humanity. I ask everyone – government leaders, businesses, international organizations – to foster cooperation and not competition, and to seek a solution for everyone: vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy of all regions of the planet. Before all others: the most vulnerable and needy!May the Child of Bethlehem help us, then, to be generous, supportive and helpful, especially towards those who are vulnerable, the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship due to the economic effects of the pandemic, and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown.

In the face of a challenge that knows no borders, we cannot erect walls. All of us are in the same boat. Every other person is my brother or my sister. In everyone, I see reflected the face of God, and in those who suffer, I see the Lord pleading for my help. I see him in the sick, the poor, the unemployed, the marginalized, the migrant and the refugee: brothers and sisters all!

The chilling display of domination, the abuse and the misuse of power, and the ease with which Police Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca took the lives of Sonya Gregorio and her son Frank in front of video cameras and many witnesses, including his daughter, is stunning. This contrasts with renewed calls by politicians for death penalty in the same, tired, strong-armed foolishness that set the stage for these gruesome murders in the first place. Viciousness begets more violence, brutality and hostility. Death penalty does not deter crime. There is no basis for a renewed call to reinstate the death penalty; in fact, this is glaring example that governance is moving in the wrong direction.

The brutal murder of the Gregorios, shocking as it is, is a symptom of deeper cultural rot caused by impunity. With the war on drugs that lauded police and so-called ‘vigilantes’ for the deaths of thousands of poor in brutal extra-judicial killings, they have not only poured unspeakable suffering upon orphans, widows and loved ones left behind, they have fueled an expectation and perception of entitlement to use brute violence within police and other state forces.  The government remains unrepentant and continues to insist that police operations have been conducted under a presumption of regularity.  The police barker that this is an isolated incident, but police killings are frighteningly voluminous and common.  Red-tagging, harassment and killings of activists, human rights defenders, and journalists also lay bare that the military hold similar expectations of impunity.  High-level officials, including President Duterte, only mock the processes of the International Criminal Court, which move closer to indictments for crimes against humanity. 

We have a problem with accountability. Perpetrators of both crimes and human rights violations must be held accountable.  Still, death penalty is not the answer.  The macho grandstanding of those calling for death penalty is just one more evidence that something is terribly wrong in our society.  Rather than engaging a sober discourse on seeking accountability and addressing the problems within governance, we seem to have become a people who verbally and physically bash one another.  Have we embraced a warped satisfaction in killings as a false fix for the incompetence of the government to deliver accountability through the courts as well as basic services to the people? We must hold perpetrators of extra-judicial killings and murders accountable; however, judicial killings are not necessary—death penalty should be off the table.

Our country needs a social justice system that upholds the welfare of the people , and  takes greater consideration for  restorative justice. We demand respectable, honourable, and accountable military and police forces, who do not abuse power or weaponize the law in a spirit of arrogance or domination. If the police want to be respected, they should be respectful of the rights of the people and not abuse their authority. The past record of Police Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca shows that there should be no   tolerance for police abuse. Accountability for his crimes is in order since this is an open and shut case. 

This is also a clarion call for authorities to end the culture of impunity and correct abuses of power by police and other men in uniform. Best modeled by promoting accountability and the value of life, politicians and state officials should focus on corrective actions that don’t require killing anyone. 

#NoToDeathPenalty

One Faith, One Nation, One Voice
December 24,2020

Diocesan Pastoral Message
December 22, 2020

        Our island awaits the day when the blood from the pandemic of violence stops flowing… When our priests in the diocese end burying victims of these orchestrated acts of terrorism.

THE GROUND ZERO OF OUR COUNTRY’S UNENDING WAR

          Violence has reigned in our island.  The senseless killing of Guihulngan City Health Officer Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband is among the 106 cases of extrajudicial killings we have recorded so far in the Negros island under the Duterte administration.

          Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan feared her death, apprehensive that the hit list of KAGUBAK would soon be realized. These were her words last year: “I felt helpless and paranoid when I go out to work. Of course we are afraid to die…”

          Our people’s doctor dedicated her life to end both the COVID pandemic and the pandemic of injustice. Committed to social justice, she tirelessly and prophetically spoke against human rights violations, militarization, and the political imbalance in our locality—consistently insisting on the need to address the roots of our social crisis to achieve just peace.

           Our beloved martyr, Dr. Mary Rose, took eight bullets on our behalf; and her husband, Edwin, took five.  Sadly, their son, Red Emmanuel, bears all the pain of the violent demise of his parents. Together, we accompany him in his quest for justice. As your pastor, I am taking the mantle of the cause of their martyrdom.

             We stress that MERELY SPEAKING about this senseless violence in our midst is NOT ENOUGH. Our collective outrage should move us to collectively act against it!

THE PANDEMIC OF INJUSTICE

            Undeniably, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights agencies have more reasons to demand from the Government of the Republic of the Philippines accountability on the rampant human rights violations such as the unbridled summary killings, and the absence of the rule of law. The ICC Report, released hours before the Guihulngan killings, said: “It has also been alleged that some of these vigilante-style executions purportedly committed by private citizens or groups were planned, directed and/or coordinated by members of the PNP, and/or were actually committed by members of law enforcement who concealed their identity and took measures to make the killings appear to have instead been perpetrated by vigilantes.” (Report on Preliminary Examination Activities 2020, ¶185).

               Pope Francis has been emphasizing the need for a culture of care as a path to peace in his 2021 World Day Message of Peace, saying, “Likewise urgent is the need to respect humanitarian law, especially at this time when conflicts and wars continue uninterrupted. Tragically, many regions and communities can no longer remember a time when they dwelt in security and peace. While such conflicts have many causes, the result is always the same: destruction and humanitarian crises. We need to stop and ask ourselves what has led our world to see conflict as something normal, and how our hearts can be converted and our ways of thinking changed, in order to work for true peace in solidarity and fraternity.” (Pope Francis, World Day Message of Peace 2021).

19 December 2020

The murder of Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan, head of the Guihulngan City Inter-Agency Task Force against Emerging Infectious Diseases (GCIATF-EID) and her husband amid an uncurved health crisis in the country, demonstrates the pitfall of a governance that is hell bent on controlling any form of criticisms and of ridding the Philippines of the so-called communist which it sees as its biggest enemy.

Rather than focusing its energy to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate the alleged corruption and inefficiency of the lead health agency under Secretary Francisco Duque III, the government again prioritizes its anti-communist campaign with the creation National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

We are concerned and horrified that since the Anti-Terror Act’s passage and the creation of the Task Force, we are witnessing a spate of arrests and killings, nine (9) persons suspected as reds were simultaneously arrested and jailed, while we are celebrating the Human Rights Day last December 10 and another lawyer was killed in Cebu last December 17.

We believe that red tagging is dangerous and divisive. It is a regression to the country’s continuing pursuit to institutionalize the practice of democracy. It has led to the revival of local anti-communist vigilante groups attacks as well as law enforcement operations, searches, and arrests and even deaths of red-tagged civilians.

We call on our state-agencies to live by the rule of law and not to err on the side of human rights. The life of every human being is important. The system of law demands due process and even a compassionate retribution for those convicted. The law of nature demands respect and compassion for all living beings, even those who have committed sins.

Likewise, the problem of communist insurgency cannot be solved by the use of arms and violence as proven in our history. “Violence begets violence” Government should learn from the past anti-communist campaigns of previous governments. Their campaigns changed nothing. Leaders and members of the underground movement have been arrested and killed yet new leaders emerge and inspire the movement to persist.

That this movement continues to endure should make governments examine thoroughly the roots of their rebellion against government. We implore governments to go to the communities especially in the far-flung areas where this movement is thriving strongly. Let the community feel that they have a government to lean on. Government has been absent in their lives. This is the reason also why NGOs like us thrive, to make up and fill-up the gaps that you cannot fulfill, yet you suspect us of being communists.

Thus, red tagging is indeed repulsive. It separates and marginalizes social development groups and agencies both local and international which truly wish to help people achieve a better life. Government needs all the help it can get to overcome the impacts of the pandemic on the nation. The need for what you call an ALL Society Approach be engendered by the government itself – Unite do not Divide.

And since Christmas is just around the corner, we ask the government to extend to our communities a peaceful and restful celebration of Christ’s birth in their homes, away from the fear of being arrested or shot right inside their very home or being hauled to jails and detention centers on a holiday. We implore Thee.

Partnership Mission for People’s Initiatives (PMPI) is formerly the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc., a social development and advocacy network of 250 members from faith-based groups, non-government organizations and people’s organizations grouped into 15 regional clusters all over the Philippines.