The anger of God

Yesterday, the family gathered for Mass at our home, celebrated by my nephew, Father Luis S. David, SJ. It was a reminder to me that the most important resource of the Filipino people is the family.

We keep on bragging about our eight million OFWs, the hardworking and enterprising overseas Filipino workers, laboring in the foreign diaspora, from the burning deserts of Saudi Arabia and its oil fields to the frozen wastes of the Arctic, or sailing the Seven Seas aboard thousands of merchant ships, bulk carriers, and supertankers, in order to send home to their families no less than $13.6 billion a year. As has been said endlessly, this substantial sum is what helps keep our economy afloat. There is a reverse side to the coin however. The tragedy of our OFW phenomenon is that too often families are separated, living far apart from each other, which sometimes leads to dysfunction. This is the hidden cost of our people having to go abroad to earn enough to send children to school, keep a roof over the heads of their loved ones, and otherwise support the folks at home. Yet, judging from many who access our megaportal, philstar.com or tune in to The Filipino Channel and a similar service of GMA-7, it’s clear that everywhere they are the thoughts of our overseas workers invariably turn to home.

However, that is not the point of this column, no matter how heart-warming the idea of the Filipino family being the bedrock underpinning of our nation may be.

What struck me during yesterday’s mass was the Gospel according to St. John, the Evangelist. Father David elaborated on it eloquently in his homily but the powerful message of Evangelist requires no embellishment.

The Gospel narrated , "Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep, oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace."

Jesus was the Son of God and it’s hard to imagine that the Messiah, sent here to redeem Man, could lose his temper. But Jesus did on that day. What must have outraged him was the materialism and greed that had invaded the temple premises. I especially liked the portion in which he whipped the money-changers out, spilling their coins. This is not to condemn those who handle money-changer booths today in the right places. Jesus, contrary to the stampitas showing a gentle Christ, must have been a powerful man, a carpenter like his father, St. Joseph, whose feast was celebrated yesterday. Otherwise, the mercenary stall holders would not have fled from his wrath. The Gospel story is surely a reminder to us that materialism and avarice, like that which pervades too much of our society is anathema to the Lord.

I’m glad to observe that our Catholic bishops, despite the taunting of our noisy politicians to join them in the tumult, seem to have withdrawn from meddling in politics and are concentrating on things of the spirit, and on inspiring our faithful to thoughts of eternal life. Our priests, with a few irascible exceptions, are returning to the worship of God. Our altars are no longer being transformed into bully pulpits pursuing a political agenda. This is something for which we can be thankful.

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So many people seem to be scolding our soldiers on the occasion of 109th Anniversary of the Philippine Army which is commemorated today. They are being lectured to stay out of politics, which they should. But why the urgency with which such servants are being delivered? Even the press, which loves to preen itself as the Fourth Estate, in a category dating back in the French Revolution, seems jealous of the ever more important role being played by the military in our society. I think our own Star columnist Federico D. Pascual, Jr. put this unease on the part of the media well, when he said in his column yesterday that the military has replaced the press "as the fourth branch of government".

Dick Pascual was, of course, speaking with tongue-in-cheek when he made that quip. The press is not a branch of government. But it’s clear enough that more and more, La Presidenta is depending on the loyalty of our Armed Forces (and Police) to keep her Constitutionally in power.

I’m not saying that foes like Hinky Dinky Soliman and her black T-shirt brigade can possibly oust GMA from office, for all the clamor they generate. On the other hand, there are more powerful and sinister forces at work and GMA evidently needs the military to deal with them. I have read criticisms, including in this newspaper, of the fact that La Gloria has been going to military camps to dialogue with the officers and men. Why shouldn’t she go? She is, after all, concurrently the Commander-in-Chief — and it’s healthy that she keep in touch with what the rank and file and the young officers are thinking, and what their problems are.

I suggest, however, that she talk with small groups without any of her generals present or eavesdropping, or she’ll never get the younger officers or the non-commissioned to speak freely and candidly.

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In his column in the Inquirer yesterday, our cousin Ramon J. Farolan, by the way a retired editor-in-chief of this newspaper, ambassador, and former Customs Commissioner (a retired Air Force General in his own right) mentioned one of our finest officers, the late General Vicente Lim. As we commemorate Army Day, General Lim cannot be forgotten. He valiantly commanded the 41st Division in the Battle of Bataan. This all-Filipino Division fought so tenaciously under the leadership of Lim that the late Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo was moved to send a letter to him on February 18, 1942, from Corregidor where Romulo was in a bunker with General Douglas MacArthur which said: "You are the one Filipino general who has caught the imagination of everyone… Keep on fighting with the same fearlessness and the same determination. Victory will be ours soon — and when I say this I know whereof I speak."

Defeat, not victory, the record shows came soon enough for the "battling bastards of Bataan," but their surrender to the Japanese was not in shame. They had fought with all their hearts before the heartbreak of being compelled to surrender having run out of food and out of bullets, and then underwent a terrible Death March that took its own toll of thousands of our boys during that unforgivable forced march to prison camp. The gallantry of our men was poignantly described by General Lim himself in a letter smuggled from the front lines (on February 20, 1942) to his wife Pilar in Japanese-occupied Manila. Lim said — "The estimated casualties that we gave the Japs in that battle (of Abucay) was 40,000 dead and wounded… I sincerely give the credit to my officers and enlisted men. They are the ones who did it all. Mine is only to inspire and to lead them. When history is written, I will give them all the credit. Their satisfaction is mine to share." Vicente Lim, indeed, inspired and led. After release from the Capas Concentration Camp he went back to fight the Japanese in the guerilla movement. According to Farolan, sometime in June 1944 he was captured by a Japanese naval unit and taken to Fort Santiago. From there he was transferred to the Bilibid Prison. Farolan recounts that it is believed that Lim was later executed by the Japanese. His body was never found.

In our family, we’re equally proud of our father Benito T. Soliven. An assemblyman and a captain in the reserved forces, he volunteered to go to Bataan and fight, where he was promoted to major in the field. He was among the Death Marchers who reached the concentration camp in Capas, Tarlac, named Camp O’Donnell, only half alive. He was a sub-group commander in that hell hole of a prisoner-of-war camp. When he was released by the Japanese seven months later after being transferred to Bilibid Prison, he was already dying of malaria. It was an honor to him to have been able to fight in the USAFFE and our Philippine Army, which is why all the statues of him portray him in military uniform, such as the one standing in Soliven Plaza in our hometown of Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur, and that in Plaza Burgos in the capital of Vigan.

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Our army has fought continuously since the Philippine Revolution to the ex-Philippine Expedition Force (PEFTOK) which we sent to fight in Korea. Among those who fought there, and later served in the Philcag in South Vietnam, was, of course, former President Fidel V. Ramos. Our troops continue to fight NPA insurgency and Moro rebellion in Mindanao.

The army tradition goes back to the barefoot battalions we sent into combat against the Spaniards during the war for independence and against the Americans in the Philippine-American War, which the Americans like to call, "The Insurrection". In that latter conflict, Filipino guerillas slew more Americans in less than a four-year period than have been killed in Iraq and wounded many more. We have an accurate body count of this, since in those days the American dead could not be transported home to the United States for burial and had to be interred here. Naturally, we lost many more of our own brave men, owing to superior American weaponry and cannon.

When can their glory fade? War is hell, but the glory lies in the fact that so many of our young men were willing to sacrifice their lives and their hopes for the future, for our motherland.

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This is why all of us must say a prayer and say, Mabuhay on Army Day.

One of the most eloquent testimonials to what happened after the "defeat" of our Army in Bataan was ironically provided by Lt. Ferdinand E. Marcos who later became the dictator Marcos.

In his memoirs, he wrote: "When I remember the Death March, I don’t recollect so much the sufferings of the prisoners on their way, for they were soldiers meant for death and pain; but I remember an old woman who was at the window of a nipa hut, waving at the long stream of unkempt, bedraggled and emaciated hulks of men, scorched, flogged, and driven along the hot summer road. She was peering into the faces passing by her as if she were looking for someone. I could see tears profusely falling from her eyes and I could tell why her pose seemed to say: ‘As your fathers were before you, my sons, you too are marching in defeat.’ It happened that the Japanese guard halted the column, just when I was in front of her. As the column stopped, this silver-haired, old grandmother started to throw us small packages wrapped in banana leaves. She was crying in a quivering voice, ‘Take these, my sons; take them all and be strong again.’ She must have been keeping them for a grandson whom she could not locate. And we were her grandson’s comrades. We knew what would happen to her, for we had seen many of the civilians abused and bayoneted for attempting to give us succor. So we cried to her to stop throwing us food and to run from the yellow demon who was hastening towards her house. ‘Run, Lola,’ we cried in Tagalog. ‘This is enough you have given us. Run for your life. The conqueror will come and kill you.’ But she kept on throwing the parcels of food, smiling sorrowfully at us, crying, ‘Take them all. You are young, I am an old woman.’ The Japanese guard ran up the house and we could see his uniformed figure from behind. We saw him lunge at her, and we could feel the sharp bayonet through her breast as she crumpled and disappeared below the window sill."

"We cursed ourselves then for having given up our arms and with them our manhood. There were some hardy souls who wished to kill the guards, but the older men prevailed upon them with the caution: ‘Just remember this, just remember this: there will be a time when they will pay for all this!"

True enough the time of reckoning came. A brave army and a brave people. This is a legacy we must never forget.