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MANILA: No matter how much wealth and military might you have, you cannot have peace if you have the poor with you. If you cannot make peace, you can only make war. Did you know that Pope Francis has an Anti-Capitalism Manifesto and it was issued last year yet, when we were not paying attention much? He is against exploitation of all kinds, but especially of the poor by the rich. Paul B Farrel was paying attention, and he noticed, and came out with an article titled "Pope Francis's 'holy war' on capitalism and toxic inequality'" where he called The Joy of the Gospel the pontiff's "anti-capitalism manifesto" and where he said (18 November 2014, marketwatch.com ): Yes, Pope Francis is celebrating his one-year anniversary since laying down his anti-capitalism manifesto for his army of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. He’s also been removing conservative cardinals and bishops from leadership roles. He’s hell-bent on changing the world fast. And hi...

MANILA: In 1996, I started earnest research on Jose Rizal, buying books from the National Historical Institute (now the National Historical Commission), because I was going to write a book to enter the national PhP 1 million contest commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of the national hero. I miscalculated and didn't even get to finish a complete rough draft. I was already then using the desktop personal computer for writing my drafts, which meant 2 things: one, I had not mastered the science of the desktop PC word processing app (via Microsoft Word 1997 ) and, two, I had not mastered the art of creative writing (via Edward de Bono's lateral thinking ). Today, I'm using Word 2013 , a laptop (Lenovo Flex 2 Multitouch), and starting Christmas Day I've been trying to write a chapter a day for another book (this is Chapter 7, which means I'm down by 2 chapters as per my target – not bad, 7 in 9. While studying medicine in Spain and in his edu...

I have chosen the doughnut as metaphor because Pope Francis has both a realistic as well as an idealistic frame of mind, and this one is really food for thought. As one of my favorite wits Oscar Wilde puts it: Between the optimist and the pessimist The difference is droll: The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole! And Pope Francis? He sees The Whole . He opposes same-sex marriage, and the more I look at the doughnut, the more I can see why: Because it's incongruous, inefficient, insufficient, insane, that is, not a wholesome whole – because same-sex marriage is either doughnut-doughnut or hole-hole! Thus, we can call him the Wholistic Pope, or Holistic Pope. You must see not only the whole doughnut but the whole system, its context defining its content. Today, Sunday, 28 December 2014 is the Feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth. It is also our 24th church wedding anniversary, as Ms Amparo Reynoso and I were married in 1990 (the civil wedding occurr...

If Frank H may say so himself, it's the beginning of all inspired approaches to end all inspired ways of stealing public funds. "Huwag Kang Magnakaw" (literally, "Don't You Steal") is the Tagalog translation of one of the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses. It is the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines reacting to news of corruption in the country so widespread it goes up to the legislative and executive branches of government. It's a not-so-simple T-shirt campaign against even a not-so-simple act like you can steal from government just by bringing home from the office a ballpen and a pad of paper; just imagine 1 million government employees doing so every 3 months. Been there, done that! There is a Facebook page Huwag Kang Magnakaw; there is the news that Adamson University is into Huwag Kang Magnakaw advocacy (Arnel Galang, 29 September 2014, veritas846.ph ); in fact, the campaign was launched by Adamson U itself on 27 September 20...

MANILA: How does Pope Francis view the role of the women in the Church? The women want to know, and so do the men. We know that he values women truly. In his first Holy Thursday after his election on 13 March 2013, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 juvenile offenders, 14 to 21 years of age, at Rome's Casal del Marmo detention facility, not all Catholics, not all male: 2 were Muslims (1 male, 1 female), 2 were female ( Wikipedia ). He views women as having "fundamental value" (Noomi O'Leary, 03 April 2013, reuters.com ). More to the point, he said later that the woman's vocation and mission remain essentially connected to her capacity for motherhood ( protectthepope.com ). "This is not simply a biological matter, but carries a wealth of implications for the woman herself, for her way of being, for her relationships, for the way in which we lend respect to human life and to life in general." Beyond this maternity role, he said, "We have ...

MANILA: Pope Francis is a celebration of life itself. Born 17 December 1936 in Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Flores means flowers; buenos aires means good air – what else do you want? I'm from the Philippines, the largest Asian Roman Catholic country; as far as this Catholic can see, with "the Francis Effect," don't cry for me, Argentina. Why, at 78, Pope Francis has the body, mind and soul to evangelize us Catholics (we need that because we don't know what we know), as well as evangelize the whole world (because they don't know what they don't know). He takes all kinds. You can download – I did – Joy of the Gospel ( Evangelii Gaudium), published 2013, from this site: w2.vatican.va ; I can send you my pdf version if you ask by way of comment. I copied it and reformatted in my favorite app, Word 2013 , and found, counting the Table of Contents I generated myself and the citations, the number of words is exactly 51,546. Today, let me tell you about t...

With the title of Pope to his adopted name, Pope Francis , and considering 1.2 billion Roman Catholics the world over, automatically you will consider Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio as leader of the world's Catholics and, just as easily, compare him with political leaders of the world and, with a little imagination, a business leader – because you think that there is so much unfinished business with the Catholics of the world. Well, there are good and bad leaders! And surprise, Pope Francis is not one of them. In the eyes of American business author Jeffrey A Krames, Pope Francis has been a great source of lessons in leadership (Vicki Salemi, "How the first Jesuit Pope might teach managers how to lead," 21 September 2013, New York Post, nypost.com ). In fact, from the Pope's life so far, Krames has derived 12 such lessons and written a book about them, says Vicki: (1)      Lead with humility. (2)      Run your organization like a field hosp...