The art of giving

Giving liberates the giver, says my favorite poet, Maya Angelou. And in my own little way, I try to do my share. Giving is a cycle; what you give comes back to you in tenfold. I encourage people to give and share. My staff members at the office have their own “pet projects” like feeding programs for abandoned kids. They do this with the help of a barangay kapitan of a purok or district. This is a monthly endeavor. And few weeks ago, they started to sell used personal items of Backroom artists and friends and proceeds of which will go to charity.

The message is clear. We have to help our neighbor. We are so interdependent with each other that we cannot ignore our successes and struggles. We affect one another in many ways. “When you get, give; when you learn, teach.” That’s why I applaud organizations and people like the Jesuit Volunteers of the Philippines and Fr. Bill Kreutz.

Father Bill is Reverend William Kreutz, rector of the Jesuit Community at the Ateneo de Manila University in Katipunan and founder of the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines (JVP). Father Bill is celebrating his 50th year in the Society of Jesus on Aug. 24 at the Ateneo campus in Katipunan. The celebration will also commemorate his 73rd birthday.

The Jesuits today form the largest religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church, with 19,216 serving in 112 nations in six continents, the largest number being in India followed by those in the US.

As a Jesuit, the Reverend William Kreutz who is of German descent and who hails from New York, has been working in the Philippines since 1963. He was only 28 years old when he came to the Philippines and was first assigned to teach mathematics to High School students at the Ateneo. He has seen the martial law years and has stood up with his fellow Jesuits for the respect of human rights.

In 1980, he founded the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines (JVP) recruiting new graduates from exclusive schools and exposing them to the plight of the poor by finding them volunteer work opportunities in the rural areas at a time when such efforts were dangerously seen as subversion, Father Bill said that indeed, one of the core values of the JVP was “subversion” or taking action against unjust systems. Under Superior General Pedro Arrupe, social justice and the preferential option for the poor emerged as dominant themes of the work of the Jesuits.

On Nov. 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests (Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado Lopez); their housekeeper, Elba Ramos; and her daughter, Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador, because they had been labeled as subversives by the government. The assassinations galvanized the Society’s peace and justice movements, including annual protests at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S.A., where the assassins were trained under US government sponsorship.

For 28 years now, the JVP has been recruiting well-to-do graduates to forsake their well-paying opportunities to live and work in areas like Samar, Mindoro, Bukidnon and other areas that “may otherwise have been forgotten,” according to Father Bill. Jesuit Volunteers have lived with and worked for trash sorters, indigenous peoples, farmers, and the rural poor.

The JVP is now composed of more than 830 former volunteers who are now part of the JVP Foundation, Inc., living out the core values of the JVP which are Spirituality, Simplicity, Service, Solidarity and Social Justice (which replaced the Subversion value during the Marcos years).

Father Bill was instrumental in converting to university status what was once the Ateneo de Zamboanga College, which is now Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU) during his term as president of ADZU.

For inquiries, call 0918-9234344 or the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines Foundation, Inc. (look for Tet Gallardo or Edlyn Kalman) at 927-9060 or 426-5908.