Manaoag shrine offers new facilities, attractions for pilgrims

MANAOAG, Pangasinan, Sept. 29, 2010—With the feast of Our Lady of Manaoag drawing near, pilgrims paying homage to the Virgin will be pleased to see added improvements in the shrine that enhance its prayerful ambiance.

Novena to Our Lady of Manaoag has started last Sept. 24 and will culminate with a procession on her feast day on Oct. 3.


The Manaoag Museum features precious items of the image and the shrine.

The Our Lady of Manaoag Museum, which houses the historic and religious articles related to the miraculous image offers to the pilgrims an extended area for reflection.

La Naval festivities to focus on change

Dominican saints with La Naval

MANILA, Sept. 29, 2010—Focusing on the theme of renewal, the La Naval festivities will kick off on Oct. 1 with the traditional novena and enthronement of the Marian image at the Sto. Domingo Church, in Quezon City.

Fr. Giuseppe Pietro Arsciwals, OP, Sto. Domingo Convent prior said the focus of the La Naval celebrations—“Tagumpay at Pagbabago” (Triumph and Change) is inspired by people’s clamor for change as seen in the last elections.

“After the elections, people continue to talk about change,” he said in an email. “And this change serves as inspiration and hope to our country.”

Arsciwals explained that “triumph” has always been part of saga of La Naval, citing the epic victory of trade galleons against the heavily armed Dutch armada in 1646 and the success of the People Power I in 1986. 

He added that the feast is intended to remind people that the true change cannot be achieved through violence. Neither can it solely rely on big projects.

Youth cruise marks international Day of the Galleon

MANILA, Sept. 20, 2010—Young people here and abroad are taking a cruise dubbed as “Viaje del Galeón,” on Oct. 8–11, to mark the climax of country’s participation in the first ever international commemoration of the “Día del Galeón” (Day of the Galleon).

Over 300 youth delegates from the Philippines and other countries are expected to board Super Ferry 20, Aboitiz Transport System Corporation’s latest acquisition, to participate in the event. Aboitiz is the main sponsor of the event.

Official logo of Dia del Galeon.

Under the supervision of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, the four-day cruise from Manila to Cebu will feature lectures and interactive events, grounding on Filipino culture and the effects of the centuries-old Galleon trade to the Filipinos.

Highlights of the event include a procession of the pilgrim image of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, cultural exhibits and presentations, and the “Gabii sa Kapilin,” a night heritage tour in Cebu. The awarding ceremonies for the national essay writing, oratorical, and declamation contests in relation with “Día del Galeón” will also be held onboard the ship.

Youth pledge to help Church in conserving her cultural patrimony

ASKED ABOUT WHAT SHE HAD learned about Filipino culture in the Angat Kabataan Camp 2010, 12-year-old Meryl Guintu smiled and replied: “Experiencing the actual historical sites is quite different from reading our heritage in books at school.”

Guintu took part in the youth camp this month, declared by law as National Heritage Month. It was the first-ever assembly of youth delegates from the 33 churches declared either by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) as World Heritage Sites; or by the National Museum, National Historical Institute and National Commission for Culture and the Arts as National Cultural Treasures.

Other youth leaders from all over the country also joined the event.

‘Siete Palabras’on TV: A Lenten ritual, spectacle

In the broadcast coverage this year will be testimonials of faith from multi-awarded movie director Marilou Diaz-Abaya and CNN Hero of the Year Efren Penaflorida

Dominican priest delivers his reflection for the Siete Palabras.

NOW ON ITS 15TH YEAR, the “Siete Palabras” at the Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City has become the key Lenten program on Philippine TV.

The program broadcasts the annual Good Friday sermons by the Dominican fathers of the Santo Domingo Convent on the Seven Last Words of Christ.

In an interview, Fr. Sonny Ramirez, OP, one of the pioneer homilists of the program, said “Siete Palabras” is “most inspiring” because it motivates rather than just entertains its audience.

Who really is the ‘sick man’? —Letter to the Editor

BY CITING the study of a population-control organization, purportedly showing the Philippines lagging behind Thailand and blaming the former’s non-adoption of population control, Manuel F. Almario (“Study reveals why RP lags behind neighbors,” Inquirer, 11/10/09) is merely like the junketing birth-control advocates who parrot what they have been fed in the West, which financed their junketing. Almario fails to apply a critical historical lens to the study; he even forgets the Philippines’ own history.

The study reportedly said that because the Philippines did not adopt population control, “by 1975, even their incomes (Thailand’s and RP’s), were about even, despite the fact that a quarter of a century before that, the Philippines’ per capita income was just slightly lower than Japan’s.”

The study does not mention—and Almario seems to forget—that in 1975, the Philippines already had the 1973 Marcos Constitution that enshrined family planning, probably the only charter in the world that had made fertility control a state policy. From martial law up to the end of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, the Philippines was implementing a draconian population control law that freely distributed condoms and abortifacients, ligated women and vasectomized men, most of them poor.

What happened? Did the Philippine economy improve? No. The Philippines slumped to what the study calls “sick man in the region.” What caused the collapse and the spiral of poverty? Not “overpopulation” because it had supposedly been checked by birth control, but by wrong policy planning, gross mismanagement and widespread corruption. Family planning itself was an instance of all three.  It is ironic that the Philippine Congress now wants to pass the so-called Reproductive Health bill, which is nothing but a resurrection of the “Marcosian” birth-control policy.

What the study and Almario overlook is the dark side of Thailand’s safe-sex program. Boasting 100-percent condom use by its citizens, Thailand has become a major HIV-AIDS sufferer in the region: nearly half a million Thais or more than one-in-100 adults in that country of 65 million people are infected with HIV-AIDS. (The statistic does not include the more than half a million who have died.)

But still the population-control and safe-sex establishment calls it a model of AIDS prevention! In the Philippines meanwhile, with various statistics putting condom use at very low rates (from 10 percent to 37 percent), the HIV population is at 3,400 out of what population-control extremists call as an “overpopulation” of 89 million!

Now why again should Thailand be foisted as a model on the Philippines?

La Naval celebration aims to deepen priestly commitment

QUEZON CITY, October 1, 2009─Officials of the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary has set this year’s La Naval celebration to support Pope Benedict XVI’s call of strengthening the spiritual commitment of priests.

With the theme "Mother of Christ, Mother of Priests, Mother of All," the celebration aims to remind the people, especially priests, that the Blessed Virgin is a caring and guiding mother to all, said Fr. Giuseppe Pietro Arsciwals, OP, rector of the shrine and prior of the Sto. Domingo Convent.

“In remembering Mary [through images like La Naval], effective preachers and leaders of the Church may be formed,” Arsciwals added.

The 11-day event at the Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City will start on Oct. 1 with the traditional enthronement of the miraculous image.