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A .45 caliber pistol is tucked into the waistband of a tricycle driver as he speeds along a desolate stretch of highway that cuts through a Muslim rebel stronghold in the southern Philippine town of Datu Piang in Mindanao. “I can get attacked by bandits, rebels or my enemies, and my gun spells the difference between life and death,” he explains.
Islamic-Christian dialogue can make great progress through art: this is what is taking place in the southern Philippines, on the island of Mindanao, in the Sulu Islands, thanks to a new initiative involving Christian and Muslim artists and scholars, using film, photographs, paintings, and sculptures with the motto: “Art: Instrument of Peace.” Through this exposition, organizers are leading an awareness campaign in the multi-religious society of the southern Philippines.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, appointed Fr. Socrates C. Lesiona (see photo), of the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP), as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Philippines for the five-year term 2009-2014.
In the Philippines, children are victims of prostitution rings, sex slaves for hire and are forced to work in high seas or open fields for up to 15 hours a day. They till the land, labor in the mines or scrub floors as domestic workers, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and work for at least 15 hours a day. Child labor is a curse that touches the lives of about four million children.
Canonical recognition was given to the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP), the first society of priests founded in Asia, now present in 13 countries. Asianews reported that the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Ivan Dias, signed the pontifical decree. MSP was created in 1965 by the Filipino bishops, on the fourth centennial of the nation’s evangelization. Their goal was “to express in the concrete our gratitude to God for the gift of our faith,” sharing it with “the peoples in Asia and the rest of the world.”
Citing food security and environmental concerns, Philippine bishops have called for a country-wide moratorium on mining as another part-Australian owned mine project in Mindanao comes under fire over fears of damage to agriculture. A moratorium on mining is needed if the country is to avoid a rice shortage in the long term, foreign environment experts have found after a study done in six mining sites across the country, echoing the sentiment raised by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
A report launched by PREDA Social Development Foundation uncovers the horrific conditions in Philippine children’s detention centers, police cells where youths and minors are suffering abuse and even torture. The children, guilty of no crime other than homelessness and begging or sniffing industrial glue, are even detained for weeks in some holding cells of the government social services. This well-documented report is based on sound research and the eyewitness testimony of Filipino social workers, paralegal officers and international human rights researchers and lawyers and the testimony of child victims of human rights abuses. The text is supported by graphic photographs from inside the jails covering decades of abuse and the hand-drawn pictures of the children themselves. The full report is available on www.preda.org and the ITV/CNN video, that first revealed the horror of children in prison to the world, is on Youtube.
Government officials and civil society members from 163 countries, gathered in the Philippines for a meeting on migration, agreed that it was time to look beyond economic benefits and give the phenomenon a ‘human face.’ As the four-day ‘Second Global Forum on Migration and Development’ drew to a close, the consensus was that there needed to be a ‘’rights-based approach’’ to migrant workers, taking into consideration the benefits they bring to both home and host countries.
World Mission has been granted two prizes by the Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) on October 29. Our magazine was distinguished as the Best Local Community/Parish Newspaper, repeating last year’s feat; and it won for the Best Special Feature – a prose authored by Frs. José Rebelo and Dave Domingues titled A Farm of Hope and published in its issue of April-May 2008. It was a reportage made in Masbate Island, in a farm belonging to the Fazenda da Esperança chain where, through work, community life and prayer, Filipino youth are being rescued from drugs, alcohol and other self-destructive dependences.
Tuberculosis still ranks number six among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the Philippines. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the country has the ninth highest number of cases in the world and the highest in Southeast Asia. Globally, there were more than nine million new cases and about 1.7 million deaths from the disease in 2006; the WHO estimates there are more than 14 million people living with TB, which kills 75 Filipinos each day, according to the Department of Health.
