Category: News

Dear Bible Ambassadors,

This we declare with you: we survived 2020, we will thrive in 2021!

As we begin another year, we have high expectations, we make plans, we are hopeful, and we anticipate good things to happen. We are so looking forward to better days ahead!

Would you like to know how you can be confident as you plan for your life, your ministry, your work, your family, and even for your relationships this 2021? Join the Bible Fest 2021 (Jan. 23, 24, and 25, 2021) and reap a slew of blessings!

 The Bible Fest is a collective endeavor of Christian churches and organizations in the country. It is the highlight event in the celebration of the National Bible Month with emphasis on the theme, “God’s Word Restores”. The Philippines is the only country in the world that holds a month-long celebration of the Word of God.

Let us fill our hearts with hope instead of fear! We intend to imbue the social media platforms with the truth from God’s Word. Join our online sessions via Zoom and FB Live! Learn and be inspired in the testimonies and sharing of God’s people about the healing power of God’s Word (Jan. 23), on the uniting power of God’s Word (Jan. 24), and on the transforming power of God’s Word (Jan. 25).  Let us crown the year with God’s promises that He will restore our health, our souls, our fortunes, our society and our nation with immeasurable blessings!

Participate! Register now!  (Registration link: http://bit.ly/BibleFest) 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. – 1 Peter 5:10 ESV

HEAR THE CRY OF THE PEOPLE

The Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas stands in opposition to the current moves in both houses of Congress to change the constitution.

Clearly, this is not the opportune time to deal with Cha-cha! We are in the midst of a pandemic with millions of our countrymen suffering from lack of food, shelter, job, education and a decent and comprehensive health care system. This is our priority! The whole exercise posed by the resolutions advocating for charter change is a sheer waste of our precious time, energy, effort and money! With the 2022 elections just about a year and a half away, who will not suspect other underlying political motivations?

We cry out in a loud and categorical manner that we oppose these moves! We urge our countrymen to be Vigilant, Pray, Discern and Speak Out!

We call on our lawmakers: address the needs of the people now. They need your attention.

Hear the cry of the people!

For the LAIKO Board of Directors,

18 January 2021

Kalipunan ng Kristiyanong Kabataan sa Pilipinas (KKKP) statement on the unilateral termination on the UP-DND Accord

The Kalipunan ng Kristiyanong Kabataan sa Pilipinas (KKKP) stands in solidarity with the University of the Philippines system in resisting the Department of National Defense’s unilateral termination of the long-standing UP-DND Accord.

Until this termination, the agreement prohibited police and military forces from entering 17 UP campuses without prior notice to the school administration. This gesture has served to memorialize the violence UP and its students were subjected to by state forces during the dark days of Marcos’ martial law. Activists, school officials and the general student body, among other groups, exerted efforts to forge this agreement in 1989.

Schools are said to be marketplaces of ideas. Filipino colleges and universities aim to foster critical and free thinking, and have generally encouraged academic freedom. Schools like UP hone a sense of nationalism, excellence, and service in large part because they have been deemed as safe spaces to discuss and debate ideas.

Labor groups want religious leaders to bring Duterte back to negotiations with communist rebels

Joseph Peter Calleja, Manila
January 12, 2021

Two Filipino labor groups have urged the Catholic bishops’ conference and other faith-based organizations to intervene in unofficial peace talks with communist rebels and encourage President Rodrigo Duterte back to the negotiation table.

Duterte broke off official talks in 2018 after both sides accused each other of launching attacks and the president has become increasingly hostile to the rebels since then.

However, the Federation of Free Workers and the Nagkakaisa Labor Coalition say that allowing bishops, imams and pastors to become involved in peace efforts could make ending the decades-long armed-conflict easier and avert what they said was an imminent and deadly threat.

“We call on our faith leaders to remind our national leaders, the military, the police and the rebels, that peace based on social justice and the common good cannot be achieved through the barrel of a gun,” said Sonny Matula, chairman of the two labor organizations.

Matula, who also heads the Federation of Free Workers, the biggest labor coalition in the country, said the labor sector has been the “ultimate” victim in the war between government forces and the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“We’ve received reports that the NPA is planning to revive its urban partisan hit squads … if this happens, it is inevitable that the Defense Department would counter this threat with force. There would be a cycle of violence that would eventually lead to the loss of many lives and livelihoods, especially among the poor,” Matula told UCA News.

Matula said that in order to avert this escalation religious leaders must intervene to appeal to both parties’ faith and sense of religiosity.

“The problem we anticipate with this kind of bullet-for-bullet and tit-for-tat scenario is that nobody will be a winner and many will probably become victims of violence, involving collateral damage on both sides. We need faith leaders to intervene to appeal to the conscience of both parties,” he added.

The labor groups said President Duterte’s “militarist regime” would otherwise take advantage of the situation to militarize the country further.

“It is highly probable that killings will see more repression and the further militarization of social conflicts that a militarist regime like President Duterte’s will enjoy taking advantage of,” the labor coalition said in a statement.

KODAO Productions
January 12, 2021

The Australian nun deported by the Rodrigo Duterte government condemned the string of assassinations and massacres of indigenous peoples, farmers, and critics during the holiday season.

Sr. Patricia Fox, NDS, deported in April 2018 on allegations she attended a protest rally in Davao City, said the Duterte government rushed to commit more human rights abuses before the year 2020 ended.

Speaking as spokesperson of the Asia-Pacific Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (APCHRP), Sr. Fox said President Duterte took advantage of the Covid-19 lockdowns to orchestrate a crackdown on activists, with many being arrested on dubious charges while several others were killed.

“Two days before the year ended, the Duterte regime’s armed operatives launched simultaneous police and military operations in the islands of Panay and Bohol that resulted in the death of 10 people and the arrest of 17 others,” Sr. Fox said.

The nun cited the massacre of nine Tumandok tribespeople and the arrest of 17 others in Panay Island and the assassination of activist farmer Lorenzo “Dodoy” Paña in Bohol province last December 30.

Sr. Fox echoed reports by local human rights organizations that the simultaneous raids in Tapaz, Capiz province and Calinog, Iloilo province were cold-blooded execution of the victims.

“Family members of Eliseo Gayas, one of the men killed, narrated how they were ordered to go out of their house. When armed operatives entered, they killed Eliseo outright with four gunshots. Two other victims – Mario Aguirre and Roy Giganto – had their houses forcibly entered as operatives shot them dead inside while they were asleep, in the presence of their respective families,” Sr. Fox said.

Paña, like those massacred and arrested in Panay, was a red-tagging victim and no stranger to harassment by State forces, the nun pointed out.

“These senseless murders are a continuation of the string of human rights attacks we have witnessed this year against activists, lawyers, farmers, trade unionists, and even health workers,” Sr. Fox said.

In the same statement, the APCHRP said it strongly condemns the killing of nine Tumandok in Panay Island and the assassination of Dodoy Paña in Bohol.

“We also call for the immediate release of the 17 indigenous activists arrested in the same operation in Panay,” the APCHRP said.

The year 2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic recessions it caused. However, it should also be noted as the apex of the Duterte regime’s barbarity and utter disregard for human rights, the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

KODAO Productions
January 11 2020

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) revealed it is being kept out of the review of the first partial report of the deaths resulting from the conduct of the Rodrigo Duterte government’s anti-illegal drug operations.

The CHR said the snub is contrary to the commitments and assurances of the government during the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last year.

“This is an unfulfilled promise to Filipinos and the entire community of nations,” CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit said in a statement Monday.

In his speech delivered online during the UNHRC’s 44th general session last June 30, Guevarra said the Duterte government established an inter-agency panel, chaired by his office, “that is quietly conducting a judicious review of the 5,655 anti-illegal drugs operations where deaths occurred.”

The members of the interagency panel are the Department of Justice, the Presidential Communications Operations Office, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat, the Presidential Management Staff, the Dangerous Drugs Board, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Philippine National Police, and the National Bureau of Investigation, Guevarra later revealed.

The government assured the international community that the CHR would play a role in the panel.

“As with all human rights-related mechanisms in the country, the Commission on Human Rights would be involved in its capacity as an independent monitoring body,” it said.

But Dumpit said the CHR has not been involved despite “respectfully, diligently, consistently, and repeatedly asked the Department of Justice” concerning its role in the said panel, to no avail.

Nonetheless, Dumpit said the CHR strongly urges the Government to publicize the findings “as transparency is key to ensure the credibility of the said report.”

“This will allow victims and their families to access crucial information in the process of obtaining justice. We reiterate our openness and willingness to engage with the government in this process,” Dumpit said.

What the UNHRC said

In a 26-page report last June 4, the UNHRC said the Duterte government’s heavy-handed focus on countering national security threats and illegal drugs has resulted in serious human rights violations, including killings and arbitrary detentions, as well as the vilification of dissent.

The report also noted that the anti-drug killings range from “at least 8,663” to possibly triple the number.

In examining key policy documents of the Duterte government relating to its campaign against illegal drugs, the UNHRC found a troubling lack of due process, protections, and the use of language calling for “negation” and “neutralization” of drug suspects.

“Such ill-defined and ominous language, coupled with repeated verbal encouragement by the highest level of State officials to use lethal force, may have emboldened police to treat the circular as permission to kill,” the UNHRC report stated.

In a separate statement issued last June 26, various UN special rapporteurs said the UNHRC report confirmed their findings and warnings issued over the last four years: widespread and systematic killings and arbitrary detention in the context of the war on drugs, killings and abuses targeting farmers and indigenous peoples, the silencing of independent media, critics and the opposition.

“The reports also finds, as we had, stark and persistent impunity,” the UN experts said.

The experts highlighted “the staggering cost of the relentless and systematic assault on the most basic rights of Filipinos at the hands of the Government”:

Based on the most conservative assessment, since July 2016, 8,663 people have been killed in the war on drugs and 223,780 “drug personalities” arrested, with estimates of triple that number.

At least 73 children were killed during that period in the context of a campaign against illegal drugs. Concerns have also been raised about grave violations against children committed by State and non-State actors in the context of military operations, including the recruitment and use of children in combat or support.

The lasting economic harm and increased poverty among the children and other family members of those killed is likely to lead to further human rights violations.

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.

Facebook Live link

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.

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