By Beth Sabado

The author is from Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, and before becoming a Columban Lay Missionary was Chief Nurse in J. Cabahug Hospital, Pagadian City. She has been in Taiwan since 2003 where she worked at the Hope Workers’ Center. Recently she was appointed Coordinator of the Lay Missionary Central Leadership Team and will be moving to Hong Kong.

One evening a friend invited me out for a walk and a drink in one of the shopping places in Pasig City, part of Metro Manila. The structural design, the different artistic expressions, the ambiance and other features of the place were surprisingly and overwhelmingly beautiful for someone like me who sees art as an expression of the soul. Exploring the place for the first time made my brain cells do ‘multi-tasking’. We moved to explore the place, but my eyes spotted a giant chess board situated in the middle of the park. Walking closer, both of us agreed to play a casual game, thinking that it would be exciting. The last time I had played chess was with my brother Patboone in the summer of 1981. Soon after his death in December 1981, the family chess board was put away with his other stuff in our underground storage. Since then, I had never had the chance to play chess again.

By John Wang Zongshe

When I was baptized my godfather chose the name John in honor of St John the Baptist. I was born into a traditional Catholic family and brought up in Hebei Province, four hours by train southwest of Beijing. Our village was one-third Catholic. When I was young there was no television in our home so I asked my father to tell me Bible stories and that is where my faith journey began. As a primary school student, each Saturday I would play with my friends in our village but also made time for one hour’s adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in the local church. It was the custom in our village to have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Saturday afternoon and the Catholics would spend some time in prayer in the church. I feel that my personal relationship with God has its origin in those hours before the Blessed Sacrament.

By Fr John A. Keenan

Fr Keenan, from Ireland, is chaplain at Centro Escolar University Manila.

Maria dela Cruz, 15, and Lourdes Garcia, 16, (not their real names) were abducted one night near their homes and taken to a detention center near Manila City Hall because of ‘bagansa’, vagrancy, ie, being out during curfew. Instead of being taken home to their parents they were dumped into an already overcrowded, poorly ventilated detention center called ‘Reception and Action Center’ (RAC). Most children do not know what curfew is and anyhow they do not have watches or know how to observe the curfew hours. The plight of such children abducted from the streets was highlighted a couple of years ago in the local and international media.  It is estimated that there are up to 20,000 children behind bars in the Philippines.

In RAC some 70 children aged between 1 and 16 years are packed into three rooms barely big enough for 30. They have to sleep on the bare wooden floors side by side like sardines in stifling heat and poor ventilation. This center is run by the City of Manila and the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The main problem is over-crowding, lack of sufficient food, of clothing, of adequate facilities, of privacy and of staff.

By Fr Brian Gore

Fr Brian Gore, from Western Australia, was ordained in 1968 and then came to the Philippines, where he was assigned to the southern part of Negros Occidental, at that time in the Diocese of Bacolod but since 1987 the Diocese of Kabankalan, an area where the Columbans have worked since 1950.

We are promoting a programme of subsistence farming in the parish of Oringao, in the mountainous hinterlands of Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, where I worked from 1975 to 1984. I no longer work as parish priest but coordinate any parish related matters with the present parish council. In the old days we were able to organize rallies of up to 10,000 community members determined to protest against abuses by the military, government officials and landlords. We were seen by the Marcos regime as a threat to established power. Seldom before on Negros Island had the poor found a way to stand up to the wealthy and powerful.