By Peter H Guevara

The son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Guevara, from Pampanga, is a soldier in the U.S. Army. At the height of America’s war against terrorism, Peter looks at the brighter side and here he shares with us how his experience as a soldier sent to Afghanistan changed him.

Army life is hectic at times and I was overdue a vacation. I arrived in Houston, Texas, two-and-a-half hours late to catch a connecting flight to Las Vegas. As I disembarked, it was hard to miss the masses of people huddled around the few television sets scattered around the airport.

By Richard Deats

Richard Deats, a lifelong peace activist in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and author of many peace books, writes to warn us of the great threats tour environment which are around the corner if not already upon us. This particularly relevant to us here in the Philippines where attempts are being made to introduce genetically engineered plants as the Philippine Government is considered to be a soft target by the companies who want to do this. Richard Deats is a longtime friend of the editor of Misyon.

I lived in the Philippines from 1959 to 1972 and was part of an antiwar group there that called itself American for Peace in Indochina. We did research, we wrote open letters, we talked to members of the U.S. Armed Forces coming to the islands for rest and recreation, we met with the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, and we picketed the U.S. Embassy on Roxas Boulevard in Manila every month. With our homemade signs, my wife, Jan, and I, and our two young sons, Mark and Stephen, joined twenty or so others in vigils to stop the war in Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh, exiled Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, stayed in our home during his Manila visit, and I organized speaking engagements for him, as well as a press conference.

By Fr. Donal Halliden mssc

Arriving at O’ Hare International Airport in Chicago on a bitterly cold Winter’s day, I was warmly welcomed by a young Filipino woman who has become a very dear friend. I was pleasantly surprised when she conducted me to where she had parked her Volkswagen “Beetle” and which she then expertly drove trough the busy highways and streets of the “Windy City”. But I am getting ahead of my story...

SCA Leader

They young lady who welcomed me was Angelita Carandang Matick who had been an outstanding leader of Student Catholic Action (SCA) during my tern as chaplain at Centro Escolar University CEU in Manila. Lita Carandang had come from the nearby province of Batangas in 1964 to take up Medical Technology at CEU. Her leadership potential was evident from the beginning and this quickly blossomed in SCA so that she became president o that very active student organizations in 1966, the first to do so in her junior year.

A word from the Editor Fr. Niall O’ Brien mssc

Recently I read a very beautiful book called Vanishing Treasures of the Philippines. In 1907 we had a rainforest cover of 70%.  By 1992 it was down to 8%. And the sound of chainsaws still goes on. There are also maps of the island of Negros, equally depressing, showing a few tiny green spots in the north and in the far nothing else. Sad, sad. And still they chop with government approval. A future generation will surely weep over this and wonder what was wrong with us.