Fh Batacan Quotes

We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf.

Some things are better dealt within the cleansing light of transparency and openness rather than in the darkness of secrecy.

We are all powerless in the face of evil. No, no, that's not true. We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf. Yes, that's it. The truly powerful man is the man who stands alone.

My life can't just be interesting. It has to be meaningful.

There are many ways to give witness to faith.

No sense complaining about the world's freest press--we fought for it, we got it, now we have to live with the nonsense that it spews out.

And I think you know what happens when you don't let the sunlight into dark places.

The arctic atmosphere, necessary for the maintenance of broadcast equipment, is air-conditioner sterile, with occasional stray smells of brewed coffee and toner for photocopying machines.

I worry that all this secrecy, all this unwillingness to change, to evolve—to listen to reason—is eroding all that we stand for. Endangering everything that we have vowed to protect and defend.

In a different kind of society—a better kind—he would have been in school, would have had a chance to play, would have had better food to eat and cleaner air to breathe. And if he still died the way he eventually did, society's guardians, its authorities and lawmen, would have left no stone unturned to find out who was responsible.

Sometimes he talks to her like she is a man. It does not matter. He does not touch her like she is one.

The compassion you seek is neither mine to give nor yours to ask for.

Whenever he finds himself at a social occasion that brings him into contact with law enforcement officials, Saenz tentatively trots out his theory. It is quickly withdrawn when some police general smiles patronizingly and says, “You’ve been watching too many foreign movies, Father Saenz; there are no serial killers in the Philippines.” The reasons offered simultaneously amuse and anger Saenz. “Our neighborhoods are too congested, our neighbors too nosy, our families too tightly knit for secrets to be kept and allowed to fester. We have too many ways to blow off steam—the nightclub, the karaoke bar, the after-work drinking binges with our fun-loving barkada. We’re too Catholic, too God-fearing, too fearful of scandal.

And neither of them can turn away. “And he said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.’” Mark 7:6–

In his line of work, nobody ever calls in the dead of night. Still he forgives her for her sudden departures. His large, powerful body is always invincibly warm in this freezing room; he likes to turn up the air conditioning and have her burrow into his warmth. For a few moments she considers staying here, her cheek against his chest, letting his heartbeat lull her back into warm, safe sleep. Then, very reluctantly, she sits up. She watches the outline of his body under the covers, and out of habit she reaches out and runs the soft, fleshy pad of her right thumb across the long, brown lashes of his left eye. The eye shuts tighter as the other one opens. Green flecked with gold, catching what little light there is in the room. “Give me one good reason.” She cannot think of anything to say. “Thought not.” The huge hands with their thick fingers come up behind her head and pull it against his chest. She breathes him in, the smell of soap and warm skin and cigarette smoke. She loves the smell of him, even if she is allergic to secondhand smoke. He cannot, will not stop smoking, and she has to take antihistamines before she sees him. Small sacrifices, like not being able to go out with him in broad daylight, the slight twinge of envy she feels seeing lovers walk through malls and parks with their arms locked around each other. His daylight hours do not belong to her, and neither do these nights; she steals them like a common thief from a wife and children whose faces and names she does not want to know. Someday soon these sacrifices will not seem so small, and these nights will not be enough. She cannot bear the thought of that day coming, and yet somehow she cannot wait for it to come.

Suspected of ties with the Communist New People’s Army, he disappeared after a lightning rally of farmers and students in Manila in the early 1970s and had not been heard from since. His family believed he had been rounded up by the Metrocom, along with a few other activists and students who had taken part in the rally. He was one of the thousands — fifteen hundred by one count, more than three thousand by another — who fell victim to salvaging. It was a term perverted by the regime’s goons to refer to the extrajudicial killings that had become a dirty open secret of the dictatorship.

Mainly he just wanted to forget. High school was one very long, very bad dream.

The Church in this great Catholic country of ours is the last great, unexamined mystery. And I think you know what happens when you don’t let the sunlight into dark places, Father.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t want any of it. I. Didn’t. Want. It. How important it was to him to have said this, the one thing he could not say all those terrible, silent years. To have said it so clearly and unequivocally, with the last breath and strength of his life.

Funnily enough, I worry for exactly the opposite reasons. I worry that all this secrecy, all this unwillingness to change, to evolve — to listen to reason — is eroding all that we stand for. Endangering everything that we have vowed to protect and defend.

We are all powerless in the face of evil. No, no, that’s not true. We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf.