Archives for February 2018

A Forum on Peace and Security in the Community “A Shared Responsibility”
(Feb. 2, 2018)

On the 2^nd day of the World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration the University of Santo Tomas specifically the Religions for Peace Philippines headed by Dr. Lilian J. Sison together with Prof. Bong Baybado organized an activity “A Forum on Peace and Security in the Community: “A Shared Responsibility.” This forum is intended to educate our young people of today’s generation and some professionals for them to know on how to response to the increasing threat of extremism in our society today. Johayna Macodi a SilPeace Club member led the Harmony Prayer as the opening prayer.

            The participants of this forum are students from the University of Sto. Tomas, Manuel L. Quezon University, Nazarene Catholic School, members of Latter Day Saint of Jesus Christ headed by Ms. Haidi Fajardo and some members of the IHOS from the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene with the supervision of Mrs. Minerva Seculles of the Disaster Preparedness and Response Ministry.

            The keynote speaker is the Ambassador of Islamic Republic of Iran Hon. Mohammad Jafarimalek also Cultural Counsellor, in his message he expressed the increasing threat of extremism not only in the Philippines but other parts of the world. He said that all of us must have a sense of responsibility to care for every individual’s safety in our community to work as one in spite of differences in faith. The 1^st resource speaker is Rev. Fr. Lucio Rosaroso, Jr. the Deputy Chief, Chaplaincy Services, PNP. He shared his experienced before becoming a priest at the same a Police officer, in an anecdote that he shared two friends where on a plane in the right wing is on fire, the other one said “look the wing of the plane is on fire!” the other one answered “Don’t worry mate it is not ours!” in our present society we do not care anymore what is happening around us, we choose to remain silent amidst the chaos that is being happen in front of us why? Is it because we are afraid or it is because we simply don’t care as long as we are safe? This is a challenge for every one of us not to be afraid and to have empathy to our common tao, not only to think of our own selves but to learn to extend our arms to help others especially those in need. As Fr. Lucio also expressed in the Theology of the body that yes we are different and yet we can work together as one.

            The 2^nd resource speaker is Mr. Christopher “Bong” Grajo the President of Emergency Response Integration Center (ERIC). In his introduction Sir Bong Grajo said “what will you do if the person beside you collapse?” common sense will tell us to help the person who collapse, to attend to his/her need. He also shared his personal experience when he was living in Muslim family in Mindanao, he said the people living in Manila has the mentality that Islam is equal to terrorist which he dais that is very wrong mentality because according to him terrorism has no religion and extremist has no respect to whatever religion because their concern is to create chaos in our society. That was what happened in Marawi City, those people whom we address as ISIS, Maute were extremists/terrorists and it does not do anything with Islam. The challenge for us today is to struggle for our own selfishness, greediness and mostly our pride, a person can only be considered as extremist when we thinks that we are better than the others, that is where extremisms mentality begins. Before he ended his talk Sir Bong Grajo said you might forget all that I have shared with you, but I just want to ask a favor to you to always remember this two things, first is the tyranny of “or” (you or me) this is the wrong notion that we must eradicate in our minds and hearts the second is the redemption of “and” (you and I) this is what we must developed to each and every one of us that we need each other we should always work hand in hand for our common humanity.

            After the talk of the speakers the open forum begins for the students to have a chance to ask their questions and clarifications to the speakers. Before the forum ended Assoc. Prof. Ma. Socorro S. Guan Hing, RN, DNM the Director of UST Office for Student Affairs gave her closing remarks and after that Dr. Lilian J. Sison distributed the certificates of appreciations to the speakers who shared their knowledge and experiences to the students for them to widen their horizon on what is happening in our world that we live in.

Breakfast Meeting with the Cardinal
(Feb. 1, 2018)

February 1, 2018 marks the beginning of the World Interfaith Harmony Week, which the traditional Breakfast with the Cardinal is the opening activity of this celebration. This year the said activity was held at the Arzobispado de Manila, Intramuros the residence of his eminence Antonio Luis Cardinal Tagle. The breakfast meeting with the Cardinal were attended by the different religious leaders and also some ambassadors of different countries.

The Ministry for Interreligious Dialogue together with Msgr. Hernando “Ding” Coronel the Parish rector of Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, the administrator of the Golden Mosque attended the activity. As his eminence delivered his message he said, “ we start this World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration in a simple manner, we eat together and yet in this simple way we also shares our biases and prejudices towards others and we learn to appreciate others believes that we have our own uniqueness as a persons and as a faith believer.” This activity is somehow a reunion for all the religious leaders to renew the friendships that they had with each other to continue to support one another as brothers and sisters, they may have different approach and ways but their goal is still remain one that is for the common good of all.                        

The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints in the leadership of Ms. Haidi Fajardo with the FOCOLARE and FO GUANG SHAN Mabuhay Temple organized another Peace Camp for this year World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration with the theme: “Celebrating the Transforming Love of God and Neighbor for the Common Good,” in cooperation with Uni-Harmony Partners Manila. This activity were participated by the youth coming from different living faith like Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, Aglipayans, and youth from the community of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Present also in the activity were Rev. Fr. Richard James Babao and Rev. Fr. Carlos Reyes together with their youth parish ministry while the Ministry for Interreligious Dialogue Quiapo Church Brought also our SILPEACE CLUB composed of Muslims and Christians youth to join the said activity.

Like last year the Peace Camp was held at Philip’s sanctuary Antipolo City. Upon arrival at the place all were asked to rest for a while and to settle things down, after a while the youth where divided into 10 groups for the Peace building activity. For some of the participants it was a sort of reunion because they were able to see their teammates once again and for the first timer it was a chance for them to meet new people to make friends. The peace building activities were group’s needs to pass some obstacles course as a team, it is a game but in every obstacle there is something that they can learn from it. The groups that they belong to is not only for the games that they need to pass but they need to know each other’s differences so that they can work together as a team, making use of others ability and putting trust in others hands despite the differences that they have.

            At the end of the day it was a very tiring activity for all of us but worth it, simply because all of us enjoyed each other’s company, making new friends differences in our believes does not limits us it only means that we need to cross our borders if we want peace and it is only possible if we work as one without biases and prejudices to one another. PADAYON!