What about a return to the ‘Angelus’?

I think the bereaved mother of the two young women who were dragged out of a shopping mall in Cebu City, a place bustling with shoppers, mind you, by seven men belonging to prominent families, then brutally raped and murdered said it all.

The incident took place in the Ayala Mall in 1997. Now, in the wake of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s wholesale commutation of death sentences for everybody on Death Row, the grieving mother is protesting the fact that five of the seven youthful hoodlum-rapists convicted for the ravishment and killing of her daughters will now escape the lethal-injection chamber – thanks to GMA’s "commutation" of the death sentences of all the convicts on Death Row.

"We are a criminal-friendly country," Mrs. Thelma Chiong sobbed, recalling how her two daughters Jacqueline and Marijoy were savagely outraged and then their lives snuffed out. Compassion and "reconciliation" for those male beasts? In a pathetic letter published in a newspaper, Mrs. Chiong said that her "two lovely daughters were kidnapped, handicapped with masking tape around their faces, raped and thrown (into) a 150-meter ravine."

Jacqueline’s body has not yet been recovered – to add to a mother’s agony. And now the rapist-abductors have been saved from capital punishment.

If only the victims of heinous crimes could cry out from their graves. What sorrow, I’m sorry to say, the President’s misplaced Easter "act" of compassion inflicted on so many mourning families. Rapists, murderers, kidnappers, and drug-dealers can now scoff at so-called "capital punishment" – they’re in no danger of paying for their crimes with their own lives. Is capital punishment barbaric? It’s well-suited, I say, for the barbarians.

Frankly, I don’t understand the paroxysms of joy with which our Roman Catholic bishops and clergy are greeting La Presidenta’s style of preempting even Congress by a mass commutation of the death penalties facing 1,200 convicts – her personal version of "abolishing" the death penalty. I believe it is not merely illegal – it is painfully unjust.

And it is dangerous. Now nobody will fear the law, because the law has been rendered toothless.

What I fear is that aggrieved families of victims may no longer, for their part, resort to seeking justice in our courts, but extract a kind of vigilante justice. The lex talionis the Presidential act may provoke is the law of the jungle – the remorseless law of the Old Testament: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

This would constitute a breakdown in civilized society. Yet, what else do we have left if the justice system is perceived as breaking down?

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The new United States Ambassador Kristie Kenney has been talking a lot, in quite undiplomatic language at that. Of course what she told the American Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday was nothing new – and it was true, it must be admitted. According to our reporter Pia Lee-Brago’s report, Ms. Kenney stated the Philippines is lagging behind its neighbors, adding that rampant corruption and poor enforcement of intellectual property rights remain two of the biggest obstacles to rapid economic growth.

Who can disagree with her assertions? The trouble is that her President, George W. Bush, is currently hosting President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China. As everybody knows, China (by its own confession and the high-profile arrests and trials of even some city vice-mayors and ranking local officials) remains rife with corruption – and is an even worse violator of intellectual property rights. Just visit the Silk Road building in Beijing, or the crowded Xianjiang "Fashion" Market in Shanghai – the popular places of pilgrimage for every tourist, ex-pat, and even out-of-town Chinese — where you can snap up knock-offs of almost every European and American brand, not to mention "pirated" computer software. Yet, Mr. Hu was greeted and toasted in Seattle, Washington State, his first whistle-stop, by Bill Gates, the emperor of Microsoft, whose multi-billion buck firm is the major victim of computer piracy.

In short, when you’re big you get away with it. When you’re small, you get scolded by even two-bit diplomats. Might is not right, but it gets you more polite and deferential treatment.

As for Ambassador Kenney, it might be wise for her to contemplate the problem that must be faced by every envoy dispatched by the Great White Father in Washington (like the Indians – oops, native Americans – used to say, Great White Father speaks with a forked tongue). Since the Philippines is a former colony, American Ambassadors should take pains not to be perceived as acting like a Governor-General or High Commissioner – to invoke the nastier-pejorative – pro-consul. In sum, US Ambassadors ought to strive to be seen but not heard.

Sure, there may be a tendency among American diplomats and consular officials to turn their lips up in scorn at a nation of Little Browns, with so many Filipinos eagerly and hopefully lining up to beg for US visas – including tourist visas so they can go TNT. I guess too many of us would like a bite of the American dream, with most Filipinos believing that they are entitled to "life, liberty" and a ticket to Disneyland.

I wish Madam Kenney, though, would spare our sensibilities somewhat. Too often in this topsy-turvy world, fond affection suddenly turns to resentment – then hatred. Kenney, in the same reproving speech, tried to soften ... the, well, blow, by saying US-Philippine relations are solid and "special." There’s no longer anything special, if it ever existed it was a one-way street, because the older generation is passing away. There is, true enough, "a special bond of history" which Kenney insists "we value." But that was history. This is today.

The Star Spangled banner may in truth continue to wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave, but perhaps no longer a country "friendly" to us.

The 70,000 Filipinos who fought, like my father, in Bataan and endured the Death March, have long ago marched off into the sunset – we’re proud of them, their patriotism, and their sacrifice. But times have changed. This is a time when nations, once comrades-in-arms, must woo each other again – or go their separate ways.

As some had said: There are no permanent friends or permanent enemies (just look at Mr. Hu in Washington) – only permanent national interests.

Has anybody told Ambassador Kenney what La Gloria’s late father, President Diosdado Macapagal remarked when he visited New York in 1964? He declared, "(New York) is humanity in microcosm; reflecting the infinite variety, as well as the infinite capacity for good or evil of the human race."

Cong. Dadong was quoted on page 171 of "American Quotations" edited by Corton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich (Wings Books, New York, New Jersey, 1988).

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In these troubled times, I was happy to receive a letter from two of my friends, one of them an editor who used to work for us in the now-defunct "Business Outlook" magazine, Val Villanueva, and former Clark Development Corp. President Manny Angeles.

Manny is now retired from government and is Chancellor of the Angeles University Foundation (AUF), while Val Villanueva is one of the best Public Relations men in town – and certainly the most decent.

Val and Manny have just launched a movement for the revival of the "Angelus Prayer" – that prayer every Catholic family used to pray during my parents’ time at 6 p.m. every day.

I remember so admiringly and so well how, in Baguio City, every car and vehicle would come to a stop, even on busy Session Road, so the driver and occupants could step out and, with heads bowed, pray the "Angelus."

The ringing of the Church bells from the Baguio Cathedral on the hilltop used to announce the Angelus Hour. Those bells peal no longer. It’s time, Val said, our people were called back to praying the "Angelus" to Our Lady – our succor in time of perplexity and need.

Val explained that the revival of the "Angelus" had been on his Wish List for years. Since he can speak most eloquently for himself, may I publish his inspiring letter – not being qualified to match either his piety or his sincerity. Here it is:

As I joined millions of Catholics worldwide in focusing on Jesus’ death and resurrection during Holy Week, I could not help feel nostalgic for days gone by when the world was much simpler and people seemed kinder to their neighbors. Modern life has made so many things easier, but not necessarily more desirable. From what was known as "The Space Age," mankind has emerged into the technically sophisticated "Computer or Internet Age," where anything and everything is just a click of the mouse away.

In a July 1995 pastoral letter, His Eminence the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, released a pastoral letter warning about the greater tasks and challenges that the Church will face in the Third Millennium. His Eminence wrote: "The modern world spins at a tremendous pace of change, sometimes upending values, creating conflicts, and throwing confusing notions that test the firmness and stability of one’s faith and beliefs." So true!

British author, journalist and broadcaster Joanna Bogle, an active and committed Catholic, laments how many young Catholics don’t even know we are meant to fast on Ash Wednesday. These young people view Christmas rom a purely commercial perspective and don’t attend Mass on various Holy Days because they don’t have a liturgical "map" in their heads with landmarks such as Advent, Lent or Pentecost. Ms. Bogle bewails the creation of "generations of cultural and spiritual orphans" who are expected to "remain Catholic without any links with the past, and without the sense of belonging to a community that has a glorious heritage of which they are a part and to which they can make their own contribution."

Given the kind of society we have today, each of us needs to be evangelistic. People are hungry for real spiritual truths. Counseling, Aromatherapy, and the South Beach Diet may have their uses, but they cannot answer our deepest needs. There is an ache in our hearts that will be filled only when we find God. And what better way to find God and share Him with others than through prayer?

I remember a glorious tradition of family prayer – the Angelus – that has sadly gone by the wayside if we are to judge by the number of families that still practice it.

I humbly believe that reviving the observance and practice of the Angelus may help us restore our confidence in our faith and teach us to share it with others. But this will require planning and encouragement via the Sunday pulpit, the clergy, the mass media and the Catholic schools.

Reviving the practice of saying the Angelus can often make it easier to begin a new family "tradition" of praying together. Even very young children can learn to say the simple responses of the Angelus with the family at mealtimes.

It is after all a prayer used by the faithful to commemorate the holy annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary. It consists essentially in the triple repetition of the "Hail Mary", to which in later times have been added three introductory versicles, and a concluding versicle and prayer. The devotion derives its name from the first word of the three versicles, Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae (The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary).

The Angelus is repeated three times each day, morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of the bell. The origins of the Angelus are somewhat obscure, but it seems clear they are rooted in monastic prayers of the hours, and even in its earliest form included the three "Hail Marys". Originally, the Angelus prayers were said at Complin (night prayer), and over the years mid-day and morning hours were added. By the early 17th century the formula of prayers exactly as we know it today was complete.

During the Easter season, the Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) replaces the usual arrangement of the Angelus prayers. The Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen) is often recited as the concluding prayer. The triple "Hail Mary" was closely associated with the ringing of a bell, a practice apparently derived from the monastic tradition of Complin. The three interrupted peals of the Ave bell probably served as an introduction to the continuous tolling of the curfew that preceded Matins (Morning Prayer).

The manner of ringing the Angelus – the triple stroke repeated three times, with a pause between each set of three (a total of nine strokes), which might be followed by a longer peal as at curfew – seems to have been in place from the very beginning. In the 15th-century constitutions of Syon monastery, it is directed that the lay brother "shall toll the Ave bell nine strokes at three times, keeping the space of one Pater and Ave between each three tolling".

Bells dedicated to the Angelus can be found throughout Europe – inscriptions include: Ave Maria and O Rex Gloria Veni Cum Pace (O King of Glory, Come with Peace). A number of European Angelus bells are dedicated to Saint Gabriel, with inscriptions including: Dulcis instar mellis campana vecor Gabrielis (I am sweet as honey, and am called Gabriel’s bell) and Missus vero pie Gabriel fert laeta Mariae (Gabriel the messenger bears joyous tidings to holy Mary.)

A 15th-century bell at Erfert bears the words: Cum ter reboo, pie Christiferam ter aveto (When I ring thrice, thrice devoutly greet the Mother of Christ). Though the practice of saying the Angelus declined in the latter half of the 20th century, many parishes continue the tradition of ringing the Angelus bells, traditionally at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m.

The revival of the Angelus may be a shot in the arm that we all need to weld us together as a strong nation. As the late Patrick Peyton used to say, "The family that prays together stays together." Broken families breed a disturbed nation.